How did they end debate prior to Rule 22?..... any idea? It seems based upon a cloture rule that prior to cloture the debate could continue as long as they wanted with no way to end it outside of the opposition ceasing to talk... Good history in this article. It's not an easy read, but does hit on parts of Senate parliamentary procedure, as well as the variety of parliamentary moves that have been used to end debate.
The Senate has been dysfunctional for a long time.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Gold_Gupta_JLPP_article.pdf
Reid and Durbin are on the Senate floor chit chatting back and forth on the record as to why the present rules are fine and why the GOP intention is not a good system for advancing the republic.