> I'm not able to find anything that gives a decent sense of how these were used in practice
Here you go, the id Software .plan reads on Blue's News. That's how a lot of people consumed id's .plan files back then (with id being one of the more famous publishers at the time). It's not pre-www, however it gives a pretty good sense (for those not exposed to them) of what .plan files were like to consume.
On the right side panel you can click through the emloyee names and then change the date with the "Archived Dates" select box above the names:
Here you go, the id Software .plan reads on Blue's News. That's how a lot of people consumed id's .plan files back then (with id being one of the more famous publishers at the time). It's not pre-www, however it gives a pretty good sense (for those not exposed to them) of what .plan files were like to consume.
On the right side panel you can click through the emloyee names and then change the date with the "Archived Dates" select box above the names:
An example by Paul Jaquays:
https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/finger.pl?id=8
Brian Hook from 1999:
https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/finger.pl?id=7
John Cash from 2000 and 1998:
https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/finger.pl?id=9
https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/finger.pl?id=9&time=199811...
Paul Steed in 1998:
https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/finger.pl?id=2&time=199806...
And John Carmack's .plan archive from 1996 forward:
https://github.com/oliverbenns/john-carmack-plan/tree/master...