And yet, I suspect if you look at the publications of "reliable" institutions in the 1980s, you'd find far more ridiculous things than you'd ever see in the modern era.

For one, half the things I see from that era had so much to gain from exaggerating the might and power of the Soviet Union. It's easy to dig up quotes and reports denying any sort of stagnation (and far worse - claiming economic growth higher than the west) as late as Andropov and Chernenko's premierships.