I guess its the lack of a killer app for the 286? Was there much software for DOS that actually needed a 286 as a minimum? I get the impression they were often

I guess its the lack of a killer app for the 286? Was there much software for DOS that actually needed a 286 as a minimum? I get the impression they were often just used as "fast XTs". Some of this is due to various limitations that make using the new features of the 286 in DOS a pain (or putting major DOS compatibility limitations on OS/2 1.x, which is probably partly why no-one used OS/2 at the time). The 386 had features that were actually used like 32 bit support and a protected mode that could actually work alongside DOS. Plus its around this time you got Windows 3.x in 386 Enhanced Mode, which is around the point Windows actually becomes a thing people use. So you get a lot more apps that basically require a 386, rather than the generic mass of DOS software that runs on just about anything beforehand.