Older Japanese had much fewer particles (助詞)? -- The modern "use ALL the particles" written style

Question

. . . A perhaps pedantic comment: The idea that everything has a particle in theory, which is either "dropped" or not, is actually relatively modern. In earlier forms of Japanese, there were many cases where "no particle" was most correct, particularly marking subjects and direct objects: 花咲く都, 兎追いし彼の山, etc.

Thus: (1) The modern "use ALL the particles" written style is not the Ideal form from which particles are dropped, but an artificially hypercorrected form;

from a comment by Matt

That makes sense.

(but then, the discrepancy between spoken & written language must have been great 1000 years ago.)

When did we start wanting to put particles on everything?

Most people today want Japanese to be so exact, like an artificial language -- purging all possible ambiguities and illogical stuff.

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("hypercorrection" or overcompensation) -- See Misplaced(?) に in たった4週間の間に毎日3Lの水を飲み続けた女性の変化がヤバすぎ！ for the over-zeal to put particles (助詞) resulting in insertion of に into 4週間の間に making the sentence ungrammatical (2 examples).

Answer 1

When did we start wanting to put particles on everything ?

In the context of "proper writing" I think the push for precision and predictability is a common feature that many written languages take on as society gets more complex. The less ambiguity in written communication, the better - even at the expense of utility and aesthetics.

I believe that in Japan this thought would have started to gain real traction in the Meiji period through the 言文一致運動 and would have continued on into the post-WW2 language reforms as the country was being Westernized.

This would eventually lead to the, "everything's gotta have a particle" mentality that I think you're referring to.

You can see similar examples in Chinese with the national movement away from 文話 towards 白話, and in German with their occasional Rechtschreibung (correct-writing) reforms.