Cordless power tools with packs made up of three to five high-drain 18650s were already available at that point. I've had a Bosch "12V" drill that uses a pack composed of three such cells since at least 2011. So they did exist, but they may not have been readily available as bare cells.
Probably not readily available as bare cells at that time. I always bought my batteries from RTD Vapor from the very beginning thanks to ECF recommendations.
Some background information: I had a protected Trustfire ICR battery explode in one of my mech mods in 2012, which spurred me on to educate myself about batteries. Somewhere around that time in vaping history, AW began to offer their red unprotected battery that was touted as the first high drain battery for vapers and flashlight users. There was much confusion about protected VS unprotected batteries on the forums at that time, and the popular consensus at that time was never use an unprotected battery in a mod. These so-called experts apparently didn't understand about "safer chemistry" batteries and that they didn't need to be protected.
After I did my research, and reading the recommendations of our then ECF battery expert
@rolygate, I began using the red AW high drain batteries exclusively.
Rechargeable Batteries
Not long after, I wrote my blog
Battery Basics for Mods: IMR or Protected ICR?, which evolved into my
Battery Basics for Mods: The Definative Battery Guide for Vaping.
I like to believe that perhaps I had a little something to do with unprotected safer chemistry batteries becoming more acceptable and popular for vapers based on that blog. On my first day working at the vape shop in 2013, my store manager half-humorously introduced me as an "internet celebrity" to the rest of the employees. He said if you Google "vaping batteries" that my blog would be one of the first hits. That was my 15 minutes of fame moment.
