It has changed over the years. For the 4 checkout dives now, the book now lists the specific skills that are done on each dive, and the student is supposed to check off and sign that they were done. The dive flexible skills are noted a ss well. For the confined water dives, the watermanship skills and the dive flexible skills are noted and must be initialed by the instructor showing when they were done. This is in the logbook, too.I don't recall anything done with my log book in OW course except logging the 4 checkout dives and the instructor signing each one (he forgot to, I had to go back to the shop weeks later...).
Where are you talking about when you mention you actually had to sign each page agreeing that you had done the skills described there? I don't recall anything like that. Is this "each page" something in your log book? Different type of log book? Maybe I just forgot and lost this somewhere, it's been 16 years.
Back when I did it, the skills for each of the DW dives were listed, and the instructor initialed when they were done. This is in the logbook, but I, as a new diver, paid no attention to it.