'87 was a very competitive year amongst many brands, both mid-level and upscale, especially steel.

Trek was running Reynolds 531 frames up and down the line. My humble 330 Elance was 23.9 lbs OEM, and I've got it at 21.2 w/light wheels, 9-sp Ultegra.
Centurion was blowing out the Tange 1 Ironman, and introducing the "new" 105 indexed series that probably hastened Suntour's demise.
Panasonic was right there with their Prestige-tubed DX, following up the awesome, earlier Team Europe and Team USA.
Nishiki had a Prestige-tubed model. Gios, Pinarello, and many others were giving the Super Corsa considerable deep-pocket competition.
Miyata was expanding it's team series. Schwinn had the SLX Paramount. There were tons of competitive, excellent frames.

After successful welding of 7000 aluminum was achieved for bike frames in '86, the writing was on the wall for steel on the mass market end.
The advances in aluminum welding really made the aluminum frame market more viable, and created margins that were acceptable.

Advances in paint techniques and materials were creating better products in many areas, not just bikes.
Add in Statistical Process Control, the mountain bike monster, and priorities changed where the decisions were made.

In my humble opininon, the components of the era were solid, fairly dependable, but not up to the frame quality.
Suntour was the king of friction, Shimano was just starting to get indexing right, and Campagnolo's Syncro, well, 'nuff said.

The legacy, though, of that era can be found March 14-16 in Charlotte, at NAHBS.