The same pattern held through the early days of "high level" languages that were compiled to assembly, and then the early days of higher level languages that were interpreted.

I think it's a very apt comparison.

If the same pattern held, then it ought to be easy to find quotes to prove it. Other than the one above from Hamming, we've been shown none.

Read the famous "Story of Mel" [1] about Mel Kaye, who refused to use optimizing assemblers in the late 1950s because "you never know where they are going to put things". Even in the 1980s you used to find people like that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Mel

The Story of Mel counts against the narrative because Mel was so overwhelmingly skilled that he was easily able to outdo the optimizing compiler.