Were Ventures in the 90’s much different? John Cardiel used to skate them
I have what was said to be Drehobl's set of Venture trucks in 8.5 width from when he was out here in Australia a long time ago on a Think tour, which another guy or two used before they ended up grinded to axle and in my hands, but they still skated well enough. They have six hole baseplates and USA under them, as well as a hex kingpin, so maybe 90s, more so than 00s even.
Maybe it wasn't so much how they skated as it was just the fact that they were the truck to have back then for a lot of those guys. Indy at the time were solid, heavy and very clunky, but on the other side of things, most people rode more narrow trucks too, of those guys at least, so Venture was a good option.
Might not be the only reason, but I seem to recall Drehobl pretty much ran out of wide trucks when Venture couldn't supply any more, so ended up on Indy just to be able to ride 149s / 8.5" trucks, but there could be more to it than that.
Most of the old six hole baseplate Venture and other brand trucks still skate fine, but I think the current models of almost all brands do skate better than the older versions, if for nothing more than small tweaks to make them perform how people want them to, as well as kingpin clearance, non slip axles, baseplates that don't end up in two pieces, etc.