Problem is, checkrides were not stall recoveries - they were recovery from stall warning, initiated from shaker (or equivalent) and done at low altitude. So there was a lot of excess power, and the aircraft was still flying. So as a measure of piloting technique, "recovering" without undue loss of altitude was a fair thing to expect.
Problem is, that scenario has bugger all to do with a real stall condition, yet people were misled into thinking that the techniques required for this party-trick checkride item were appropriate for a REAL stall. When clearly they are not.
It appears we are now (painfully slowly) moving towards demonstration of recovery technique for a real stall - or certainly something a lot more like one.
As for the comment about the Boeing technique previously - I bet there wasn't one explicitly in the manuals - there's actually rules about what goes in the manuals that explicitly prohibit basic airmanship items - you're only supposed to put stuff specific to the type. The fact that OEMs are now putting stall recovery techniques and procedures into flight manuals ... well, draw your own conclusion from that.