Good question, LH. But I am first set to wondering what your editorial eye makes of these features of the text:

the '90's
the late 1930's

Best more modern practice would have '90s and 1930s, hm?

as though he were

Why do people use as though at all? It seems to me that as if is all we need; and the if in it functions as it usually does, while the though in as though does not.

still brought out slang that was fresh at the end of the century

We note the simple past in place of the pluperfect: slang that had been fresh. Interesting from a non-American; and we do see a pluperfect soon after in the passage.

So, with more patience

Can the comma be justified? Perhaps this is just a matter of taste, but I wouldn't want it.

I think that there might be a different treatment of gender in any such round-table discussion today.

Those features of the text, Noetica, probably have somthing to do with Snow's text having been written more than fifty years ago.

So have the other features of interest, wouldn't you say, Elck? In any case, that substitution for the pluperfect is not explained in such a way.