In reply to TheGeneralist:
The latter. Well, not all were chipping (manufacturing may be a better word, as often it also involved gluing bits of rock in place, filling holes, etc.) back in the day. It typically only occurred at the higher grades and especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Quite a few routes were "manufactured" all over the world by a lot of top climbers (not only Fred Rouhling!): France (Buoux, Gorges de Loup, Fontainebleau, Saussois to name a few areas), quite a couple of areas in the US, Northern Italy, etc.
This helped the sport to progress when it comes to climbing difficulty. However, people realized over time that it was the wrong thing to do. Routes that first looked impossible turned out to be possible later without the chipped holds due to climbers getting better. At a certain stage, people (mostly) accepted that the practices were wrong and that nature is to determine (the difficulty of) the route.
It is easy to conclude in hindsight that the routes should not have been chipped. But in light of how people were thinking about it in the day... This is also what Fred Rouhling seems to conclude: in today's world he probably would never have put up Hugh and De L' Autre Côté du Ciel (based on various reports on the topic, it appears that Akira is natural) as ethics have moved on including his own.