ESD (Electrostatic Discharge):
ESD is only dangerous if you actually accumulate and store static charge, the likelihood of this happening depends on the environment, your shoes weather, humidity, and floor/surface materials. ESD grounding straps are a precaution that guarantees that you are not carrying around stray charge. There have been robustness improvements for surviving ESD, but generally components are just as sensitive today as they were in 1995. The ubiquity of ESD protection on both the IC (protection diodes) and assembly level may have increased.
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On a fundamental level, the dangers of ESD damaging electronic components has only increased due to shrinking component sizes. However, the lower cost of many protection devices (both integrated into a chip and on an assembled PCB) has probably made ESD-tolerance or protection more ubiquitous than in the 90's and certainly than the 70's/80's when those procedures where piloted and developed
Local climate and humidity, is key. Do you live / work somewhere where you are constantly getting shocks from door handles etc?
Integration of pc parts into standard modular components and the ubiquity of chip-scale ESD mediation since the early 90's means that there is a higher probability that the part you are working with is less ESD-susceptible today than in the 90's. It is very common today for chip manufacturers to integrate ESD protection into even the simplest logical devices, so while the underlying process (CMOS transistor logic) is the same, the extra protection makes the chips hardier and makes it less likely you will discharge current through anything sensitive than ever before.
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