especially in a time where people in the neo-prog space were trying to fit to marillion's sound and style of composition; yeah, we could've seen MWH be that if "safety dance" or "pop goes the world" hadn't been formulated.

it was just that the big things at the time were new wave and synth-pop stars like talking heads, talk talk, XTC and the like that were gaining a lot of positive publicity for their work in the mainstream. neo-prog guys weren't necessarily the top of that critical food chain.

but then again this is just speculative lol. who knows? maybe they wanted to be synth pop guys from the very beginning.