Very interesting discussion. PJ2 and Chris Scott have it right, every aircraft type has its own characteristics. BOAC may have a point regarding different degrees of wing sweep, I do not have his experience - all the civilian transports that I flew had essentially the same amount of sweep.
What is important is the overall character of the wing on approach. Early models all approached with a lot of trailing edge flap extended, and sometimes a not very sophisticated TE design, hence a lot of drag demanding a lot of power. Close the throttles early in those types and you dropped like a rock. Same was true of the B-727 and the DC-9-30 series, if you were right on the bug you did not want to get the power back until very close to the ground, if not already touching down. The DC-9-10 series, however, with no LE slat, would float forever so you had to retard the the power before touchdown if you wanted to stop on a limiting runway. As an aside, my mob decided to operate the "Little -9" on "Little airports" with little runways - not a lot of fun especially in the winter! Boffins!
What has happened as jet transports evolved is a much cleaner, low drag wing on approach resulting in lower thrust levels (fuel saving and noise reduction) allowing the power to be reduced in the flare before touchdown. In fact in all the AB airplanes that I flew you had to get the power back if you wanted to touchdown in the desired runway zone. When I first went on the A-320 an F/O told me that he had observed one particular captain who consistently got the best and smoothest landings - he never heard the retard call with him. That's when we began to realize that the call was not an instruction, it was telling you that you had not done something.
Never flew the B-737 but the 747 and 767 had so much wing out there that you could easily (unless really heavy) get the power back, the nose up and run it on on the back side of the tires, nice and smooth.
My two cents worth.