Note that UTF-8 wasn't actually standardized until Unicode 2.0 in 1996. This was at the same time as the surrogate pairs needed for UTF-16. And UTF-8 didn't find its final form until 2003, which was around the time when it really started to gain legs.
However, as you say, by 1996 people were already using the older UCS-2 standard.
However, as you say, by 1996 people were already using the older UCS-2 standard.