Will, I do still the same thing, but the reason for 72 for email being that way is still card-based.  In FORTRAN the first column defines if the card is new (a blank), a comment (a capital C), no zero a 'continuation' of the last card.  But column 73-80 were 'special' and used to store sequence #s (this was handy when you dropped your card deck, card sorters could put it back into canonical order).  So characters in those columns were typically ignored.   Thus when "Model 28 ASR" (a.k.a. ASR-28) created it had 72 columns.  It's interesting that when its follow on the Model 33 was created, it actually had 74, but most SW configured it to 72 [search for a manual on bit savers or the like if you want the details].

IIRC, the original DEC 'Glass TTY' - the VT-05 was 72, but later terminals like the VT-52 were 80 columns, as was the ADM 3A.

The one thing I will give the 'tyranny of 80-columns" is when I look at code it starts to break that line size by a lot, I often think that is a bell-weather of something that needs to be rewritten and simplified, and/or the abstraction might not be right.   Like, most/many rules there >>are<< often break exceptions, but when I do look code with really long lines, I admit I am suspect.

Clem