Hm... I'd be tempted to doubt your judgement if you didn't sound like you know what you are saying. Nevertheless I find your observation quite surprising because Dieter Thiele was one of the main ambassadors for the palm roll Euro Pin. Even today, there are still videos on his website in which he explains the palm roll. (http://www.tischfussball-thiele.de/ - Go to the Clip that's called "3er-Reihe")
I understand... the palmrolls started showing up after 94/95 when Terry Moore and his rollover started pushing aside the old "pullshooting" guard, of which he was one, too. Don't know if it was the handle or just the need for a shot with as much volume and power. The ease with which the early rollover adopters blasted shots must have affected the Germans, Austrians, Brits and other players from Europe and the "Low Countries".
I do remember quite a while before that in 1980-81 going back for a visit to South London, Frankfurt-am-Main and Belgium (Ostend?) and other cities, where I saw a lot more closed hand (wrist snap) frontpins in Kicker, although there were quite some palm rollers already. That's almost 3 decades ago!
I remember finally having adjusted by then to the seemingly huge MillionDollar TS browntop handles and then having major difficulty there with getting my old "seesaw" motion on the middle 3man. They still had the cork balls and non-shiny looking metal "pinballs" on the hard rubber surfaces.
Come to think of it, the continental players also shot "sort of" rollovers with a closed hand. My friend Tony Caruso, who used to be the Tornado purveyor in Buenos Aires before moving and taking over a trucking business in Ft. Lauderdale/Miami, and a good friend of Rico's, still does that shot.. kinda like a "flip" but much more violent, where you snap the frontpin into what is a continuous rollover, but doing it with the inside of a closed hand. Usually a straight or to either side of a defender, done off a walking dribble, where the shot can be timed or not even covered.
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