Cliff,
Evidently you weren't bowling in the 1970's when the "soaker" was discovered.
You mentioned: USA today reports that this weeks bowling tournament will use plastic bowling balls that were used back in the 1980's. The tournament will be called The Geico Plastic Ball Championship. The article goes on to indicate that it is to increase ratings but also to "bridge the disconnect that viewers might have in seeing how much better the pros are than civilians in bowling leagues....Using plastic balls will allow pros to show how good they are even when they're not helped by the latest technology."
Before the early 1970's all bowling balls were hard rubber. With the invention of the plastic ball scores did not immediately get lower. It wasn't until a pro, whose name escapes me now, began "soaking" his ball in paint remover and turpentine and began dominating the pro tour.
What this soaking did was it softened the outer portion of the ball so that it would grip the alley quicker regardless of the amount of oils used on it (All alleys are oiled). This enabled his ball to react better, hold the line upon which it was thrown tighter and deviate less when it hit the pocket.
The manufacturers who learned what he was doing quickly began manufacturing bowling balls with a softness range that a bowler could choose from. Balls began hooking more and scores began rising. this was actually the cause of players to begin using two or three balls in a match as the necessity to control a hook was now dependent on the balls softness rather than the skill acquired to manipulate the amount of hook one would use.
Within a few years the governing body of bowling restricted the hardness quotient of the ball and tightened the allowable offsets allowed in drilling it (Side, finger and top weight).
So going back to plastic balls from that time period isn't like going back to a time of markedly different inferior equipment, but rather a time where the rules governing them were markedly different. The bowling balls used today react quite similarly to how they did at that time under the tougher manufacturing guidelines used today.
It would be as if steel shafts, persimmon heads and golf balls of the 1970's could be made to play by today's players the same because the rules of manufacturing and personal adaptation of them were remarkably different.