" I mentioned it to a fellow tech and he said, "let me look at it".
He put a wire through each eyelet and soldered both sides. "

I am not straight on this eyelet thing. Does that mean the plated through holes ? If it is like a rivet type thing they used to be called griplets.

They used them in some TVs with two sided boards that were not plated through holes. They used to break free and wreak havoc.

Then we got the plated through holes without anything in them. What your buddy did might be called "pinning". Turns out some of the Dolby boards on the Sansui 9090DB went bad this way some audiophiles consider this pinning to be an essential part of the restoration process.

It seems that on some boards the eyelets or griplets simply forestall the problem, not prevent it.