I'm mainly refering to the typical fences that come with many bench and
contractor's saws. There's a reason that many of these were replaced with
Vegas, Beis / clones, etc. Shoot, you even replaced your stock fence with
a Bies. Was the oringinal front-locking?

NO.....

I ordered my saw direct from Jet (a Cabinet Saw) 15 years ago with
the Biesmeyer Fence... At that time Biesmeyer was not owned by Delta
and Biesmeyers were common options on many saws...

My original table saw was a Rockwell Contractors saw...locked front
and back, My Dads Tablesaw was a Craftsmans,..locked front and
back..my Brothers original Tablesaw was a Delta Contractors
saw...locked front and back...

Bob Griffiths