Discarded TV film was secretly salvaged from bins and skips by staff and contractors who worked at the BBC between 1967 and 1978, when the corporation had a policy of throwing out old reels
That's more like dumpster diving. I wouldn't exactly consider that theft
I contend the drop off between those two had more to do with focus. Band was very tightly focused on a few key people. And while there was a large secondary group of people that would come and go, even a number of them were around a lot so that the audience could get attached to them.
Pacific was just way too decentralized of a story. There wasn't anyone that helped flow through all of the different stories. And most of the people didn't have enough time for you to get attached to.
And that difference honestly may just be chalked up to history. That there was a unit that could be followed through the a good chunk of the Europe theater. And there may not have been one such unit in the Pacific theater. Probably due to the island hopping nature