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It would have made things a lot easier for modern tiers to copy their flies too

Not really because nothing has changed - what was easily available or fashionable then and is not so now will still apply in the future - try sourcing specific 'modern' materials from only 10 or 15 years ago and you can often have exactly the same problem.

But you are right - I have never found a fish that cared whether I used cobblers waxed Pearsalls silk or a modern equivalent in even a similar shade. That said I may catch more fish on the older style fly because I feel 'better' about using it and fish a little better ... I do not really know about that one but I guess it applies to many of the things we find desirable - like classic rods for instance.

There are some things which I absolutely would not use (unless I already had it from an old collection etc.) or more specifically even try to source because creating any kind of 'demand' for some items results in 'environmental damage'.
I will use the following as an example of what I mean rather than any specific tying material - I used to grow tropical orchids commercially and as a 'serious' hobby and what could easily be noted was that often the most 'desirable' for the show growers was also the rarest and the most expensive ... lets us say a specific slipper orchid from some remote region .... demand immediately outstrips supply, price shoots up, collectors descend on the location of species, species is removed by locals who cannot afford to give up the opportunity (often to buy food) and are sold on, it is then found that the species only existed in limited numbers in a specific site - species is now extinct in the wild and probably dying out in collections because it inhabited a very local climatic niche. If we are lucky someone has collected seed or propagated the plant and maybe we eventually do the environmentally good work of 'reintroducing' the species to the wild. If we are unlucky the species is now extinct and lost forever.

One thing I would add is that in quite a few old patterns 'unusual', 'exotic' or very specific items were 'used' to specifically limit the available source of the fly - the marketing of exclusivity is certainly not a new thing. But in most cases they just used what was easily available to them, just as we can do now.

So do 'Killer Bugs' using Chadwicks 477 catch more fish that 'Killer Bugs' with a similar / identical wool body - probably not ... but they just might and if you really want to tie a Killer Bug exactly as Frank Sawyer did you just gotta have the real deal!