To me, powers from day one are as much a part of his origin as him coming from Krypton or the rocket just because that's what I grew up knowing. The Donner movies and Ruby Spears shaped how I see the character. The post-Crisis "no powers til puberty" rule always felt like a foreign concept to me. It didn't help that, during the 90s, anything that wasn't that was treated as silly or childish. I get the argument for it but I also think there is an argument for giving him powers from day one, too. For one thing, he learns to control his powers from an early age. If you wake up with the ability to lift a tractor over your head one day when you couldn't the day before, that's going to take some getting used to and could be dangerous. Whereas if you start off with a baseline of grown adult strength early on and work up from there, you can adjust to your circumstances much easier. It also creates a good plot device. The entire concept of Smallville was built around the idea that he was always an outsider.

I also grew up physically weaker than everyone else due to birth defects. So a Superman who was also different from everyone else from early childhood on was something I could relate to. While mine was negative, his was positive. Whereas a perfect student with an idyllic childhood who also gets to have super powers one day is not something I could connect with. Again, I get why they did it. By 1985 Superman was on the verge of cancellation so they went in the complete opposite direction. But everyone is a product of what they grew up with. And being able to relate to a character also helps.