The claim that the 800m were a fringe event is totally bizarre. There is absolutely no reason to believe that fields in the last 50+ years were generally weaker than in the 1500m or 400m.
As I said, we have been through this in 2019 when Semenya etc. were banned and women suddenly seemed to struggle to break 2 min without the extra pacing provided. Sure, we might have had almost 10 years of women preferring a different distance for the obvious reason (although I am not aware of a particular case who changed to 1500m or 400 hurdles or so in the 2010s).
Look at all times lists for 800m and 1500m. 1% of 113 secs. is 1.1. sec. 3% about 3.4. For 1500m it is about 2.3 and 7 secs respectively.
Grant that there are also many suspicious marks in the women's 1500m, incl. the WR, within 1% the least suspicious is 1 (Hassan). So scratch this. But within 3% there are 36 athletes, many not extremely suspicious and in any case not most from almost30 year ago or more and from the eastern bloc.
For 800m there are 3 within one percent of WR (Olizarenko, Jelimo, Semenya), all suspect. There are 55 athletes below 1:56.7 (so the historical depth is 1.5 times that of 1500m, not less)
Of these about 28 are from the Eastern bloc and the marks 30 or more years old. 3 others are DSD persons, at least one ore two more suspected of DSD. A whole bunch are more recent eastern bloc or mid-1990s chines, count them yourselves. This list does not a allow an estimation what could be possible clean. Wereas for 1500m we can without total naivete assume that at leat 3:54-55 is possible clean as these marks were run by nonsuspicious athletes.