There wasn't. Users want security in general but most people would not even realize it if a boot process was insecure nor would they understand the implications.
> There must have been well-publicised cases where "bad guys" were hijacking the boot process.
Yes. The "bad" guys are the people running "unauthorized" software on computer hardware. Governments and corporations would very much like to restrict what users can and can't do. Widespread cryptography is viewed as an existential threat to law enforcement and intelligence gathering. Companies enjoy owning their users and being in a monopoly position with regards to the software market for their devices. So we get systems which control the user instead of systems controlled by the user.
