I'll tell you all what. I started building models in earnest around 1979 or 1980, and Tamiya was the Sh*t at the time. That kit included. I used those very figures as the basis for many a Vietnam diorama when I was in High School. Compare that kit to Tamiya's first US and German Infantry sets from the early 70's (which boybuddho mentioned). Now those kits were dogs. At the time, you had Testors/Italeri which went from fair to very good in sculpting/casting quality, and Monogram, most of whose figures and armor kits were in 1/32 scale and the quality was fair overall but a little mushy in detail. Then there was Tamiya at the top of the heap. Heller had some so-so kits, as did Hasegawa, but if you really wanted good quality figures in a variety of poses and nationalities, Tamiya was not only the only option, it was an option you looked forward to taking. There were, of course, many fine white metal kits kits available for the figure modeler in a variety of scales, but for 1/35th scale armor modelers Tamiya set the standard. I shouldn't forget that Hornet made many great white metal WWII figures in 1/35 scale.
It wasn't really until DML came along in the late 80's and early 90s to give Tamiya a run for their money by releasing affordable, high quality kits, plus releasing kits of long neglected subjects faster than the average modeler could build them. Notice that it was about that time that Tamiya began to set the bar higher again, only at a premium. The first main stream $50 injection molded kits began to appear, with Tamiya leading the way. You got what you paid for, to be sure, but $50 is a stiff price all the same. This was when Minicraft and Italeri jumped into the quality kit game, as well as a few others. Multi-media got big around that time too. Then MRC split with Tamiya and hooked up with Minicraft (which was when Minicraft really kicked it into high gear oh how I wish they had put out more 1/35th scale helicoptor kits)
The hobby has come light years over the last 30 years. Standards are so much higher now than they were then. Those figures may be laughable now, and brother are they laughable, but in their day they were high quality.