I've actually been doing some "historical" gaming posts lately, covering noteworthy games released in certain years (just made two about 93 and 2000) and grinding was there in some cases even before the MMO thing came along, but for me it really depends on the game, I remember for example Lineage 2 which is all about grinding for the most part and i didn't like it that much. Comparing that to Ragnarok Online which also has a big deal of grinding, yet for me that somehow seems less frustrating, might be because even grinding can be diversified
Yeah, I too think grinding can become fun or frustrating depending on how its presented, and sometimes the players mood and their available play-time.
You can't grind if you only have 1 hour free of your day and want something exciting.
By the way Grinding in Video games existed since the first few ones I think, I know that FF1 & DQ1 are basically 'grinding' games with so little to do outside leveling, and it's not only related to RPG.