The early album rock stations tended to give considerable latitude to the airstaff in music selection. The libraries were large in those first rock stations back in the earliest days of the rock format... 1966, 1967 when many FMs were forced to end simulcasting and "put a bunch of hippies in the back room with some albums... and don't breath too deep in the studio!"
When Abrams developed his AOR concept in North Carolina, the format was tightened, rotations were put into effect and jocks could not play at will But before that... and on a number of "album rock" stations that continued, the jocks could pick songs and the flavor of each show was very personal.
This was not rogue behavior. This was the nature of the format. However, what Abrams proved was that a tighter list of proven songs would smash those free-form stations.