Admittedly, I might have given this way too much thought, but I wonder if there’s a historical sub-genre of music that we all mislabeled at the time.  The historical orthodoxy is that we went from prog to punk to new wave and post-punk and, then, by the mid 1990s, into third-wave prog. 

Could there have existed a third way, though, a melding of prog and new wave and post-punk?  As such, I think of albums by traditional prog groups such as Yes (Drama and, to a lesser extent, 90125), Genesis (Abacab), or Rush (Moving Pictures, Signals, Grace Under Pressure, and, especially, Power Windows) that all benefitted greatly from new wave and post-punk.  

But, I can also think of a number of new wave bands that employed very serious prog elements such as Modern English (After the Snow), Tears for Fears (The Hurting, Songs from the Big Chair), The Fixx (Reach the Beach, Phantoms, and Walkabout), Ultravox (Vienna, Rage in Eden, and Lament), Thomas Dolby (The Flat Earth), New Order (Low-Life), XTC (Skylarking), Echo and the Bunnymen (Over the Wall, Ocean Rain), Simple Minds (Sons and Fascination, Sister Feelings Call, and New Gold Dream), and Talk Talk (Colour of Spring).  One might also think of a band like B-Movie.

Maybe, just maybe, Yes and Thomas Dolby have far more in common than we thought.

And, if there was such a sub-genre of New Wave Prog, it would help us understand shoegaze (Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Lush) in the late 1980s and early 1990s as well as bands such as Catherine Wheel and even early No-man and Porcupine Tree.

Just my two cents. . .