No equipment makes winning easier--unless the opposition is prohibited from using it.
When did I say that it made winning easier? I said that it was harder to dominate all aspects of tennis back then, because there were more variations and more dimensions involved. In the 1990s, you had different gamestyles to contend with on top of everything else, and different surfaces usually meant that certain gamestyles would do better. Dominating the tennis world in that time, across all surfaces, was a lot harder.
The game was changing long before the introduction of your despised polyester strings. Let me highlight a few of the more significant changes:
Despised polyester strings? Excuse me? I said no such thing. I'm just pointing out the differences in the different eras.
Yes, I am aware that tennis has changed and evolved over the decades. However, prior to 1985-1986, we didn't have the sort of power in tennis that there was afterwards. Think of the very old school players with wooden racquets and pure gut strings, and it was utterly impossible to dominate rallies with a depth and authority of the sort that we see in today's tennis. In fact, with wooden racquets and gut strings, you'd struggle to hit such consistently deep and powerful shots, and for that reason a lot of play predominated in the forecourt, i.e. around the net. Today, due to the big power of the modern equipment, and the higher margin for error allowed by poly strings, play predominates around the baseline.
Topspin. You give the impression that extreme topspin didn't exist prior to polyester strings. I don't have to name all of the greats and lesser stars who used heavy topspin prior to the current era, do I? It's the stroke, more than the strings, that determines the extent of topspin applied to the ball.
I am well aware that a player can hit topspin with gut strings, and I never said otherwise. Sergi Bruguera used to hit huge amounts of topspin with gut strings in the 1990s. What I was saying was that gut had a greater tendency towards hitting flatter balls. If you hit balls flat with gut strings, it was really flat. If you try to hit the flattest ball with poly strings, it will still be less flat than what flat balls would be with gut. With more topspin, you have a greater margin for error, and with the power in today's game, play gets mostly confined to the baseline.
Last but not least, you say that players find it easier to "dictate with a depth..." by using heavy topspin. Wrong again. Depth is achieved more easily with hard, flat shots than with topspin.
You are missing the point. Hard, flat shots mean a far smaller margin for error, and thus a much greater likelihood of making more unforced errors. For this reason, flatter balls mean that you won't dictate with the necessary depth and authority, because you will be making more unforced errors. With poly strings, you have the power and the greater tendency towards hitter more topspin balls, meaning a greater likelihood of dictating play without making unforced errors. In turn, play gets largely confined to the backcourt.
If players are making more unforced errors in rallies, that encourages more style variation. If they can dictate from the back with a depth consistently, while keeping the unforced errors down, it means baseline play predominating.
