Having done some 8086 programming recently, I did find segments rather helpful once you get used to them. They make it easier to think about handling data in a

Having done some 8086 programming recently, I did find segments rather helpful once you get used to them. They make it easier to think about handling data in a modular fashion; a large (64k maximum) data structure can be given its own segment. The 286 went farther by providing protection to allocated segments. I have a feeling overlays only really become a nuisance once you start working on projects far bigger than were ever intended for that generation of '86. MS-DOS not having a true successor didn't help either.