If you take a close look at a lot of examples of "old world craftsmanship", you tend to see a lot of examples of things that are not perfectly flat, square, even, etc. For example, I am into historical harpsichords, not a common interest I realize, and when you look closely at revered examples from history, you see some surfaces looking like they are straight from the hatchet (because they are), uneven thicknesses, tear out, joints in keyplates, knots smack in the middle of the bridge, and the like. However, the overall visual effect of the instrument appearance is stunning and the sound is beautiful. But a current day buyer of an instrument made like that would send it back because it was "poor quality" Even though those "defects" had no bearing on the original instrument or its capabilities.
For whatever reason, in modern woodworking, people doing hand tool work seem to want to emulate the (unnecessary) precision of machine work, and people doing machine work want to imitate the (unnecessary) quirks of handwork. To paraphrase Ringo, "It's crazy"
To answer your question directly, I highly doubt people of yesteryear who made their living with their tools fiddled and fettled them as much as hobbyists of today do. Some probably did, but most, not likely. The tools that I inherited from relatives that were cabinet makers and carpenters 50 -100 years ago certainly didn't have that level of "perfection" They just tuned them up as well as they needed to do the job and that was it.