The increment stuff came along after "sudden death" time controls were invented and started to become used in tournaments. Before this, the time controls for tournament games was something like 40 moves in 2 hours with another 20 moves per hour in the secondary time control and so on... If a game needed to continue beyond the tournament session (like the hotel was shutting down the room) the next move would be sealed and the game resumed at some later date.
That being said, the whole motion to consider speed chess and sudden death time controls as rateable games has solved one problem while starting another. The big problem now is that no one wants to actually live and die by the "sudden death" nature of speed chess. When someone starts griping at my chess club about how they would not have lost if they had an increment or delay on their 10 minute game, I ask why didn't they play a 15 minute game then. But the same problem is there too. They take longer to move based on the amount of time and expect to be saved by an increment/delay. Well, why not play a 30 minute game? 45 minutes? An hour? It looks like these groaning losers will never be happy with any time control. The suggestion that they think faster and come up with better moves doesn't go over well at all.
I never liked the perpetual game we had in the old days and all this business of adjournment, when the person with more time on their hands was the more likely to win. That certainly needed getting rid of. Then we had 30, 35 or 36 moves in an hour and a quarter plus 15 mins to finish and that was rather a fast time control, making it impossible to play a really good game of chess (in an hour and a half each) unless you were really booked up. I think increased road traffic made that necessary. Previously, a prompt start at 7:30 and a game lasting three and a half hours was possible in most establishments being used for chess; but teams started turning up later and later and whereas we would usually wait a quarter of an hour before starting the clocks, many teams wouldn't or couldn't.
Tournament chess with at least two hours per person and county matches with maybe two and a quarter to two and a half hours each made it possible to play better chess. I've never played in a tournament with an increment and I don't want to do so. In my opinion it's rather childish .... the desire to use the technology available even if it's harmful to the chess, which I think it is, because it introduces a completely different time control, so that the game is played with two separate time controls, defeating the original object of playing to a finish in an alloted time whilst also losing the extended time controls to allow you to do so.
It means that people can use unpleasant tactics of the type we see used on chess.com, where there are increments: of playing for a draw, keeping the pieces on in a complex but stable position and then hoping your opponent will blunder in the new speed control which will come in. It's completely wrong, in my view; and introduced by people who may not be children but who may have the mentality of children.
The increment stuff came along after "sudden death" time controls were invented and started to become used in tournaments. Before this, the time controls for tournament games was something like 40 moves in 2 hours with another 20 moves per hour in the secondary time control and so on... If a game needed to continue beyond the tournament session (like the hotel was shutting down the room) the next move would be sealed and the game resumed at some later date.
That being said, the whole motion to consider speed chess and sudden death time controls as rateable games has solved one problem while starting another. The big problem now is that no one wants to actually live and die by the "sudden death" nature of speed chess. When someone starts griping at my chess club about how they would not have lost if they had an increment or delay on their 10 minute game, I ask why didn't they play a 15 minute game then. But the same problem is there too. They take longer to move based on the amount of time and expect to be saved by an increment/delay. Well, why not play a 30 minute game? 45 minutes? An hour? It looks like these groaning losers will never be happy with any time control. The suggestion that they think faster and come up with better moves doesn't go over well at all.