Appending "bare" or "full" to a dimension on the drawing merely pointed out that that particular dimension on that particular component needed to be a bit larger/smaller in order for the parts to function when assembled; it was just up to the maker how much to increase/decrease the nominal dimension to suit the parts' working.
Even today ME drawings are full of 1/4" shafts supposedly fitting in 1/4" holes – or if you're really up to date, 6mm shafts fitting 6mm holes… at least the bare/full dimension pointed you in the right direction as to which part to make larger/smaller. We all make our bits to suit our own bits – occasionally having to take extra care when making our bits fit somebody else's commercial fitting.
If you were to dismantle (say) half a dozen Simplexes built by different people, would you be able to reassemble six functional Simplexes by taking parts at random from the pile of components? Of course not.
People often moan in the Letters columns about ME drawings being rubbish – "They don't conform to National Drawing Standards and they're full of mistakes", they whine. But how many of the moaners have submitted a full set of drawings of (say) a traction engine for publication in the magazines, whereby all the dimensions are fully toleranced (using geometric tolerancing as well) so that the finished product is guaranteed to go together if made to drawing? And there are no omissions or errors with the dimensions? And a system is in place to update and correct all the errors/improvements/etc etc? No, I thought not.