Yeah... a big part of the continuity thing, especially before the 90s, was that being able to watch the episodes in any order was considered a very high priority, because syndication at the time often randomly picked episodes (as it still does for shows like The Simpsons today); however, it has become increasingly popular to rerun from first produced to last produced, so continuity has become much more important.
FHF, I just looked up Step by Step; damn were they bad at continuity LOL.