It was new technology, 3D was a fairly new concept in gaming in the mid 90s. But it took so long to get properly implemented. You have super mario 64, gex enter the gecko, lemmings 3D. I am wondering if it was a business decision and not the devs who pushed for a free roaming camera, since it was clearly not a satisfactory result gameplay wise. Because at the same era, you have games with fixed camera angles that are much better experiences overall.
I rarely had an issue with moving the camera.
I remember utterly hating games with fixed angles from the day. It felt so restrictive and infuriating when something out of camera site caused you to die/fail.