Mik5: ““Those rabbis who allowed smoking (e.g., Rav Moshe has a teshuva about this) did so because in their days, it was not yet known just how dangerous smoking was, and if they would have known, they would have assured it as well.”
Lilmod uLelamaid: “I would be very wary of making definitive statements regarding what Gedolei HaDor “would have said” in a given situation. I would at the very least qualify the statement by adding the word “perhaps”.”
ZD: “People seem to quote Rav Elchanon Wasserman, for what he said in 1939 and would assume he would say the same thing in 1945”
One thing has nothing to do with the other. Assuming that someone would have said the same thing that they did say is very different than assuming that they would have said something that they didn’t say.