In the mid-1980s, SLM theory was perceived to be radical, to lie outside the mainstream neoclassical and, when not totally overlooked, to be subject to hostile critique by the latter. Within a few years, however, this situation had been noted to have changed dramatically. Morrison (1990: 492), for example, quotes from Dickens and Lang (1988a: 132): ‘At one time, segmentation theory may have suffered from a lack of theoretical foundations . . . Now the problem is choosing among the many competing explanations.’ Similarly for Hayter and Barnes (1992: 335):1 ‘The problem now, though, is choosing among a swathe of recently developed competing segmentation theories.’