I only ever played vanilla through Luclin, dabbled about 10minutes with pop but didn't do anything, and I don't remember mouse wheel zooming out to be a thing. I wouldn't bet anything on that though it was a long time ago.
I also never played Everquest again after 2001 until a few months last year when THJ came out, so no i'm not confusing anything with P99 or quarm or any other emu over the fucking decades.
F9 3rd person was perfectly fine in OG everquest and everyone used it after guk. I literally can't think of a single dungeon kunark or beyond that didn't have the 500 foot tall ceilings specifically because people complained about not being able to use 3rd person in guk/solb in vanilla.
on my rogue as a melee I stuck mostly to first person unless I was on corpse recovery duty but as an enchanter I was 100% 3rd person at all times and I started him up in Kunark and played through all dungeon content/epic through kunark and velious. I had a wee little necro alt i played a bit in vanilla and used 3rd person on him as well but that was just kiting in outdoor zones like oasis/sro and he never made it past the 20s
