Dumb Question, yes?

Don't "overthink" BB and SB. Bore is bore and stroke is stroke, I don't care what the "name of the block is" The rest of it is piston dome design, combustion chamber design, and camshaft design, for the most part, and the rest of it "left over" is improvements in fuel and ignition control, IE EFI and spark controls which simply were not there back in those days.

"We" that is, "they" "the them's" spent a lot of time screwing around with sillyness like electronic controls on carburetors, lean burn and other sillyness, before finally getting right down to fully electronic fuel injection