First off, welcome back to the church. Don't kick yourself too much with your flirtations with Lionel O-72 and AtlasO. They just showed you how great Super O is. I experimented with AtlasO for the wider curves. What it taught me is that unless I was willing to go to something 72" or wider I was still going to run into problems with equipment requiring greater minimum diameters and was still going to have unrealistic overhangs. So now the Atlas track is slated for the trains I will be turning over to one of my kids this Christmas.
Jim R, I don't think it is fair to say that Super O wasn't a success. With large amounts of traditional O and O27 track already out there it was going to take some time for Super O to really catch on. Since Lionel had already peaked by the time it was introduced Super O didn't get that time. Now admittedly this is looking at things through Super O colored glasses, but I see Gar-Graves, Ross and Atlas as the successors to Super O.
As for Lionel actually having done their homework, I don't think their heart was ever in a Super O revival.
