First please allow me to Welcome you to the CZForum. We are happy you are with us and hope you enjoy your membership as much as we enjoy ours. New friends have been made here, and I suspect more will be made as time goes on. Add to that the folks here that have quite a bit of knowledge about not only CZ's, Dan Wesson's, Brno's, but also some other useful information on other things as well and you have a really fun forum.
As for your questions(s) I really never thought about it either way frankly. I have something along the lines of 7 or 8 Pre-B's, not counting, 2 which are still NIB and along with another one (NIB) which is now living in the NRA Museum's Permanente Collection. And I do have one or two other models of CZ's also. The only real difference I know of is that the mags for a Pre-B will fit Almost any other CZ made, but any magazines made for the B models of any style, will not universally (if ever) fit into the magwell of a Pre-B. The other difference of course is the firing pin block in the B's but not the Pre-B's, the different trigger guards on the two styles, and some other small mod I don't remember just now. Then of course there is the CZ 75 Pre-B Short Rail which was produced more or less first, and is now very rarely ever put up for sale, and even then it's usually done by word of mouth and gone within a day if not hours.
Possibly I'm not sensitive enough to feel or notice what you have, and no offense I am most certainly NOT making fun of your statement or you. It simply means that I have never noticed what you are talking about, and there are more than likely folks both here and on other forums that know exactly what you are talking about.
Actually, come to think of it, back in the day, the CZ company as we know it had some formula problems with plastic which caused them some grief with their grips especially on the CZ 52's and 82's and in fact even today Plastics, or Polymers, have still given them some grief which has since been addressed. Then also in the early days, apparently along that same vein they weren't to up on Styrofoam and or it may well not have been thought up/invented back then, anyway the point is they packaged all their CZ's before the B models came out in cardboard boxes, which to say the least are not conducive to shipping and handling, or at least shipping Long distances by Train to Ship, etc. Good luck finding a box for a Pre-B CZ with all it's orginal paper work and things that isn't damaged more than a little even if that NIB pre-B never left it's box and went straight into someone's safe. Seriously those boxes, actualy the insert that held the pistol and spare mag, and the cleaning tool in place were made out of such a thin cardboard it barely passed the defination of cardboard, and wasn't actually designated as construction paper. But things were hard back then, and I would presume they had few resources to use as it was.
That's about as much as I can tell you. I have had CZ's since the late 70's early 80's and I love everyone last one of them and not a single one has ever failed me, I have failed them on occasion by feeding them ammunition they really didn't like, but thankfully that only ever happened on the range. I loaded and carried ammo I Knew always worked when I left the range, and my CZ went back to its primary function as my carry/duty weapon of choice.
