I think that the original joints had oil in them... as compared to grease...
However, there is also the possibility that if you backed up it stopped the noise temporaraly. My wagon had a bad CV joint .. and I thought one time it was going to EXPLODE on the road... I drove home at 15 mph.... took a long time.. but I found that if I stopped when it made the noise and backed up... it would stop it for anywhere from 100 to 400 miles...
I drove it 4,000 miles doing that... LOL