When were the "Glory Days" of the Pharmaceutical Industry?

All I here in the field anymore from other reps and even the occassional doctor is " I remember when we could.." and you can fill in the blanks. What were these days? Has anyone actually experienced them? Personally, the basic elements of my chosen career I love, representing beneficial products, talking to and befriending people, and seeing the fruits of my labors; love it! However, I do wonder if there was a time before the "sign in here and wait", "you can get a signature but don't speak" and my favorite "so who can I get to sign for you." The conclusion that I have come to is that the nature of the in office call has not changed that much, it is the "out of office" or personal meetings that have changed. Golf was the biggie, but why don't we do it anymore? Because our companies won't pay for it, how cheap are we? How good is our friendship with the doctor? Couldn't we pay our own way and just have fun? Dinner, can only be with the doctor no spouse. Who the hell in their right mind is going to work all day just so they can call home and tell their spouse that they would rather go to dinner with a relative stranger rather than be home with their loved ones. This speaks to my earlier post about corporate loyalty, the companies don't have any loyalty to their customers if they are truly willing to ask them to do such things. I understand that the office of the inspector general has a lot to do with these restrictions, but I also know that not a single company that I have worked for has shown me a clear guideline sent down by the OIG it is always their interpretation of the rulings. Blah, Blah, Blah is what I say to that. If companies honestly and ethically wanted to approach personal sales relationships with their customers and reps did not abuse the system I think we would still be doing all of these things. Instead the companies take a "don't ask, don't tell approach" and hope that their reps find a way to do all of these somehow outlawed events.
Who is being hurt by all of this? I believe the patient ultimately gets hurt by this because the great majority of reps are a true resource to their doctors in that they provide insight into the safety, dosing and appropriate patient types for the drugs and if the doctor never gets to sit down in a relaxed setting to go over this information they are either going in blind with a drug or they won't use what could have been a beneficial treatment for the patient.
I am amazed at how many doctors are "no see" in a office setting so therefore are not getting info from the reps on new therapies, but if you can offer them an out of office event with their spouse they are open to it. So, if we cannot do these sort of engagements who loses out?
The argument of cost does not apply although I know that some of you are thinking about it. What is the average cost of having 4 people out to a sit down dinner with drinks, $150-$200. Well think about the cost of feeding 30 to 40 people in an office environment, at $5/head it is at least$150 and you never get the undivided attention of your customer. So why should I spend money to feed 29 people who do not write prescriptions for patients? Pharmaceutical lunches are the most popular means of doing business and I feel the worst for ROI in the industry.
So it seems like the Glory days of the Pharmaceutical industry were when people could sit down to dinner and talk with their spouses and we could all get together with friends and colleagues and share a game of golf without fear of firing or worse yet federal fines for being decent human beings. I think the Glory Days could be right now if we wanted them to be. If we all go out there with the intention of making friends and having personal relationships that have no agenda you could spend time outside the office with your customers without breaking rules, you could be happy sharing your time with your customers and your families and this job would get easier and be more fun. Just because one or two things have been taken away does not mean the Glory days are over it just means we have to work around the absurd restrictions and create our own Glory days.