I suppose they figured, quite reasonably, that things written in the 60's would be updated by 2038 and to address this problem was premature optimisation. In the 2000s 64-bit went mainstream which gave us a solid ~30 years to tackle this issue. 32-bit time was introduced in a time where there was a very real argument for it in terms of performance, simplicity, and cost.
I'm not even sure if in hindsight the wrong decision was made.
I'm not even sure if in hindsight the wrong decision was made.