Well, I tend to think that it is part of a package of things that contribute a certain orientation God-ward. Alone it might not be such a big deal. There were some though for whom the change to the focus on the congregation was the point.
But I think it is important to understand why people were so focused on thee recovery of very early Christian practices. It is taken as a bit of a given that it was in the 60’s and later on that people began to leave and doubt the Church, but really, it started much before that, with the Enlightenment, and it increased throughout the 20th century. Higher Biblical criticism when it began to filter down to the regular people in some form was devastating, and it had already been devastating to many academics and clergy. Looking at the Bible from a kind of philological standpoint, the same way other old documents were analyzed, really shook people’s faith. Many could no longer think of it or understand it as a document that was in some way the inerrant word of God, a sure foundation.
When some scolars began looking at and making conclusions about early church practices, many thought they had found the answer. If only we could figure out how those first Christians, those closest in time and space to Christ, worshipped and thought, we would have that foundation. And what is more, it seemed that many Christian groups might be able to agree on this, brinbging in the possibility of re-unification.
Together the ideas of recovering an authentic and sure Christian package, turning around the damage the Enlightenment did to the Church, and bringing together different Christian groups, was too much for people to resist. They quickly began to try to incorporate these new “discoveries” into liturgy. They also seemed to fit into the schemes of some who wanted to see reforms in the Church (which really should have been a warning that the information was being interpreted through modern eyes.)
We know now, as some suspected all along, that there are real problems with the conclusions that these people came to. We also know that the practices of the early church cannot provide the firm foundation people were looking for in any case - those documents are just as susceptible to higher criticism as the Bible.
But perhaps by understanding what people were looking for it will be possible to see a way forward. While I think the older liturgies were more substantial in many ways, a simple return to them really does not address the larger problem that the proponents of the changes were trying to solve.
I’ve seen two.