In the day of few boards, and mounted ones at that, the WoA deferred to overlays to probably cut costs/weight-of-the package. As has been verified by many on this forum there is a natural tendency for aversion to the use of overlays in the first place and the lack of any aesthetic terrain features as a second was probably a turn off for many players. The engagements in the desert/arid areas were fairly interesting but I do believe the rules were unnecessarily overburdened with too much chrome/bling to be wholeheartedly accepted by a significant number of players as normal fare in their games. Many designers found they could easily adapt ETO geo boards as terrain applicable to desert/arid engagements (Tunisia/Tobruk-area) with just a few terrain modification SSRs with little difficulty and therefore the "desert" scenarios have not really gone by the wayside, but have been modified as to lose their "desert" look [EX: Hart Attack]. The more recent appeal for desert scenarios using the 4 desert boards in particular may well be because of the ease of using overlays on VASL. As always JMHO.