We always did (have defects and mutations), that's natural evolution. Another explanation is there are a lot more of us and communication tech puts that constantly in front of us, referred to in philosophy as recency bias. That is one thing I hope this technology brings us, the ability to finally see this plant isn't a scourge and get the world to start dealing with it like they do wine which evolved with us too ;DYou just have to adjust accordingly. Every strain/pheno is different. Some will stretch no matter the manipulation in light. After cross breeding this plant for decades, there has been a DNA drift.... nothing is as stable as it was 100, or 1000 years ago. Same thing as humans. The human race was once pretty stable outside of disease. Now, we have defects and mutations. I've had the same strain, but different phenos do fine, but the phenos are completely different...I had one pheno from a mother (5 babies) that just died mid flower from the same mother (never finished the mother), but they were all from M5 of that strain. I try to explain it like this. You have 2 parents that have 12 kids... are they all going to be identical?.. no. Some are going to to be short and fat, some skinny and tall, some retarded, some smart (good structure), or just die..... just like humans. This is why pheno hunting is important these days. You want to find that one kid from the parents that is smart, structurally sound, healthy, .....snip....,
To know for sure if mutation was happening at a higher rate than previously we'd have to do causation studies. I have not specifically look but I know last time I practiced this wasn't a concern.
However the point is you are right, different strains carry different genetics.