Many people consider the 90’s to be the golden era in skateboarding. So many timeless video parts were dropped and skating rapidly progressed to new levels. Its been over 20 years and many of these parts still hold up today even compared to the abilities of modern day skaters. This makes me wonder what caused this boom in the 90’s. I’ve noticed everyone back then rode 7.75 boards or smaller which I’m sure made technical manoeuvres much easier. But nowadays everyone is riding 8.25+ I wonder if this has slowed the natural progression of skating to a certain degree and steered us away from the technical tricks of the 90’s
That's your first mistake right there, you noticed wrong. The era of the most rapid progression was 1989-94 (same as Golden Age Hip-Hop) and board sizes smack dab in the middle of this period (1991-1992) were around 9" +/- wide and many were slicks (so super heavy and soggy). All the shit in Questionable, Tim & Henry's Pack of Lies, Love Child, etc. was filmed and released during this period on relatively wide boards that went from being square tail/pointy-rounded nose to symmetrical-egg/football shapes. The wheels were another major factor; they went down to like 35mm (insanity, when you think about it) and somehow managed to not hinder progression, just speed and style.
Eventually, the evolution to the popsicle shape happened in 1993 and while smaller, boards were still 8-8.5 (like today) until the second half of '93, when they quickly went all the way down to 7.5" in some cases and stayed that way in 1994. They basically became banana boards. But wheels gradually became bigger; this was accelerated by the Philly/Love Park/Eastern Exposure scene, with those dudes riding 55mm+ wheels that looked HUGE at the time. This was near the beginning of the progression of style over tech. Boards stayed pretty much the same (7.75"-8.25") until the 2010s, as the evolution of style, gnar, and tech merged.
Now with the wider boards, people are doing the most insane shit, so I'd say NO, it hasn't affected progression in the least. I think board shape and wheel size is all about a particular skater's idiosyncrasies and comfort level. Amazing shit can be done on practically any shape, within reason.