always have been

In the sense that pulp fictions characteristics are being quick reads and ephemerality then to a certain degree yes to some of them, but a lot I think are best viewed as descendants of the YA franchise boom of the 90s and onwards, theres a real dedication to authors like Colleen Hoover and Sarah J. Maas that doesnt quite fit the entire image of pulp.

It's just a current somewhat gendered style of genre lit. Pulp has some specific connotations which make me hesitant to call romantasy pulp as such. But yeah, past examples of this sort of thing include pulp Westerns and Science Fiction in the 60s, yes. Of course, trendy genre lit is often Good Actually. As much as any other kind of lit.

old school pulp and romantasy slop have both produced the same broad-scope handwringing about the youth rotting their brains, but imo it's more comparable to handwringing since the 1800s about "silly novels by lady novelists"