I agree that the "innovation" of threadless was more an issue of manufacturers looking to be more efficient as far as the manufacturing process. I also agree that it was the mtb market that drove it, particularly with the suspension fork. And the fact that it became clear that aftermarket suspension forks would create more aftermarket fork business than had been present before. Makes more manufacturing sense to build forks with a long steerer tube that can be cut to size instead of making a whole bunch of different threaded lengths. And it is a very strong design (threadless fork/stem), so it does have merit as far as mtb's are concerned. Once the threadless thing caught on, it became obvious to the road bike sector it was the way to go, too, in terms of manufacturing efficiency. Just my .02