In this work, we review the proposition and development history of intensity modulation and direct detection optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OOFDM), as well as of its evolved versions, the layered asymmetrically clipped OOFDM (LACO-OFDM) scheme. We conceive and characterize the first experimental demonstration of a LACO-OFDM link relying on sophisticated adaptive bit-loading. The transmission scheme can be adopted for the development of low-cost high speed unrepeatered optical connections. Unrepeatered and uncompensated transmission tests over single mode fiber (0-20 km) are reported, achieving transmission rates up to 72 Gb/s. Moreover, we characterize both uncoded and channel coded waveforms, using a multi-class coding scheme, which has specifically been developed to benefit from the layered structure of LACO-OFDM.