There are both theoretical and practical arguments against ascribing long bonds in polyiodides to the category/model of secondary bonds. On the theoretical side, "secondary Lewis acid-base interactions" were traditionally intended to be a sort of second-sphere or close-shell interactions. After all primary (i.e. valency) needs have been satisfied, molecules/ions retain some sort of interaction hotspots, although much weaker than those belonging to the valence shell. The situation of polyiodides is at odds with this original view, as the long bonds in polyiodides, especially if admitting the participation of 2c-1e EDMBs, still belong to the primary/valence sphere; i.e. could be catalogued as share-shell interactions. Therefore, the categorization of multicenter bonds as secondary bonds does not really apply, as it was already pointed out by Espinosa et al. when discussing the stage II in the formation of ERMBs. Even if Alcock's rules framework is used, it is expected that secondary bonds are formed collinear and opposite to the central atom's substituent. This view would force one to imagine that, chosen any I atom along an arbitrarily large polyiodide chain, one side of the chain is a substituent and the opposite side is an incoming external interacting moiety. There is the same degree of arbitrariness in this procedure as there is in picturing which is the I2 molecule and which is the I -anion in a perfectly symmetrical I3 -species, which overall is the same pitfall of the group-by-group nomenclature when it demands that a nucleophile and electrophile should be identified (it might not be apparent in the I3 -example, but symmetry can be easily broken, also nomenclature-wise, e.g. by considering a Ch … I … I, Ch = chalcogen, as done in ref. ). On the practical side, Alcock's rules, 10 although fully functioning, had a clear pragmatic inspiration and lacked the conceptual and quantum mechanical depth we can finally give to these concepts nowadays, as correctly stated in ref. 24.