[Avodah] lighting a chanukiya

[Akiva Blum]

   >RAB wrote:
   >> It still needs to be explained how Chazal were mataken a mitzva that no one
   >> had to keep for hundreds of years, and only after the churban. What were
   >> they thinking?
   >
   >Kindly explain. Didn't you show in your post that lighting the menorah 
   >on 'hanukah was a standard practice, already long before the discussion you 
   >quoted from TB Rosh haShono 18b?
   >-- 
   >Arie Folger

I apologize if I wasn't clear. This question is in the same direction as the first. 
1) The gemora, and Rashi, seem to imply that chanuka was already widely kept.
2) According to the opinion suggested that chanukiya was on hold until the churban, what sort of takono was it that wasn't intended to be practiced for hundreds of years, etc.

Akiva