Even the critics got it wrong. You can't make a profit on small bikes without cheap labour and modern manufacturing. John Bloor hasn't got a single small bike in his line up. BSA et all thought they were doing well as they could pay high dividends to their share holders. They didn't invest in modern manufacturing, they tried to make new models with worn out old machinery. They got in outside consultants to tart up the range and that's all they did. They couldn't make an XS650 even if they wanted to.
It's tragic that the schism between the financial sector and industry still continues to this day and got us into the present vastly bigger disaster.
It's been written that the roots of this lie in the City of London being populated largely by the privately educated upper class who, no longer having an empire of land to run all over the globe, turned their attention to finance. They've never been culturally interested in manufacturing.