With all due respect to your expertise....
My brother and I were born in the early 1950's in a small town without much in the way of medical resources. We didn't have breastfeeding consultants -- we didn't even have pediatricians. We had one old fashioned doctor (the kind who made house calls in the middle of the night) who did it all. I believe a nurse taught my mother what to do before she left the hospital with my brother, and my mother had sisters and friends who tried to help her. My mother was not by any means ignorant or lazy or stupid. Even though we did have just the one doctor, she did seek out advice from other doctors -- those are the ones who called her lazy and incompetent. She did try her best to breastfeed my brother (he's older than I) and even though she wasn't successful then, she tried with me when I came along 2-1/2 years later. It didn't work either time.
No, there was no nutritional analysis, but it became rapidly obvious that my brother and I were both malnourished. If I remember right from what Mom told me -- both my brother and me had severe colic caused by an allergy to cow's milk. I believe she wound up having to use some kind of soy-based formula.
Believe me, if my mother could have, she would have breastfed both of us. But it just didn't happen. And whatever was in that soy formula must not have been bad -- brother and I both grew up healthy.
I know how your mother must of felt. I breastfed my first son, no problems.... With my second son four years later I could not. I tried for three months, I noticed he was not doing well. When I took him to the doctor he said it was my milk... I had to put him on soy formula... Both of my sons now in their twenty's are very healthy.
Trust me, some believe that women who don't breastfeed their children are lazy (I guess that would include me), without hearing the circumstances of the individual. I am a huge proponent of breastfeeding, but I am not going to call a mother a bad parent if she doesn't breastfeed. FWIW, my three little ones are completely healthy, active, and bright children, and they were mainly formula fed.
Your mom sounds like she did the right thing :)
I know lots of people who couldn't breastfeed, or didn't want to breastfeed, and formula, when prepared properly is just as nutritious! Your mom I'm sure did the best she could!