This remarkable reaction has been extensively investigated under a wide variety of conditions by a number of groups. Theoretical and modeling studies have been carried out, both in conjunction with experiments and separately. While this reaction has served as an important model for the emergence of homochirality, the fact that its particular chemistry cannot occur in an aqueous prebiotic environment means that the search for more prebiotically relevant reactions with the features of the Frank model is ongoing. In this review, we summarize what we understand about this reaction and its mechanism in order to evaluate why it is such a singular case and to suggest where we might look to uncover a prebiotically plausible version that may align amplifying autocatalysis more closely with studies of prebiotic chemistry and the origin of life.