Pipes very much existed before v7. At a bare minimum they're in v6 as I remember them from Lyon's, but I think they were as far back as v3.
> In OpenVMS Version 7.1, the DCL PIPE command was introduced.
Ask me how I really know OpenVMS v6 doesn't have pipes.
[1] http://h30266.www3.hpe.com/odl/axpos/opsys/vmsos84/6489/6489...