I can totally relate to that! It is what I did for most of my musical life!
Now, I am somewhere in between. For one thing, I am much more interested in theory than I was 20 years ago. But when the guitar player in our group comes with a new chord sequence, I usually start playing off the roots and then develop from there trusting my ears. BUT: now I also find myself going back to the bass lines I came up with (using my ears) and analyze them afterwards to understand why it sounded good to me and what is going on. For example, I noticed that I had used 9th without really realizing what they were.
Next time he comes with chords, I want to jot down some notes that should fit before I play anything and then see how that makes sense!
But, yeah, for the B2B, the level of theory was just perfect!