It always has been about matching up with the environment. Back before WWII they used shellac lane finish and didn't oil it. Guys threw 2 hole conventional grip balls because all they needed to do was dump the ball onto the lane and burn a track in the shellac. The modern finger tip grip only became popular on the lacquer finish that replaced shellac, and was oiled to protect it. For the first time the skid, roll, hook reaction became useful to enhance carry, and the semi roll release started to supplant the full roller as the most effective release.
The polyester ball was introduced in 1960, but didn't gain wide popularity among top level bowlers until Don Johnson started having great success with it on the harder urethane lane finishes that were starting to replace lacquer around 1970. Polyester wasn't a disadvantage on the lacquer. Indeed Harry Smith won a PBA stop using an early Crown Jewel in the mid 60's. Lacquer tracked so nicely that the ball coverstock wasn't a big issue. On urethane finish the oil tended to push off the heads, and even when the track dried out, the harder rubber balls didn't have the friction that the softer polyester balls did. Polyester was better because it would skid through the oil just as easy as rubber, but it would grab the dry harder. This characteristic was soon discovered by younger bowlers who started lifting the ball harder creating even more revs giving them more hitting power. Soon Roth and Holman appeared on the tour with their high rev big hooks and a host of others followed suit.
Lane men also discovered that too much oil down the lane hurt scoring, so they began cutting the oil distance back and stripping the back ends. They also began putting much less oil outside in and attempt to build a track on the new finishes that didn't track as nicely as lacquer did. They had blocked lanes on lacquer too, but this usually involved leaving the outside 5 boards dry. On Urethane they left the outside 10 dry to accommodate the bigger hooks that were starting to dominate the game.
When urethane was introduced it again changed the dynamic because urethane unlike polyester could be roughed up to create friction on the dry without reducing the skid throught the heads. If you had done this to polyester, taking it down to 500 grit, it would have increased the friction in the heads too much, causing the big hooking releases to burn up early on the short patterns.
Resin enhanced urethane created yet another new friction characteristic. Unlike pure urethane, resin created friction in the dry without needing to be roughed up. It also did two other things that were even more important. First, it absorbed more oil, causing less oil to be pushed down lane. Second, the friction coefficient was higher on the oil that did carry down than was the case for urethane. All these factors worked together to allow rotational energy to be released more effectively at the end of the oil. Lower rev traditional styles were now able to carry better because they could play straighter through the oil and still get energy into the pocket. Many power players struggled with the resin equipment because high revs and slow ball speed caused their balls to burn out when they looped the lane.
As the power players learned to create more ball speed, and lane men started oiling longer after the short oil experiment during the 80's the advantage of the power game again returned. This, because the power players could follow the oil much deeper inside than was the case in earlier eras, and still get strong down lane recovery.
During all the eras I have described, certain bowlers were able to understand the changes and modify their games to best take advantage of the changes. WRW was a high rev power player when he first went on tour. Even before resin he discovered that he could use ball speed and more end over end roll to compete. When resin came in he was ahead of the curve. Norm Duke was incredibly versatile when he was young. He could hook the lane and he could go straight. When resin came in he went away from his bigger slow hook and utilized his straight game. Others have continued to evolve during the resin era. Barnes tore the cover off the ball at Wichita State, now he relies on ball speed. Even Sean Rash has changed his axis rotation to go straighter without giving up the revs.