Your comments on the brief Raleigh\Huffy marriage allow me to bring a unique perspective to this discussion. I own a Huffy\Raleigh frame (actually made by Marinoni) used in the 1984 season by Marianne Berglund when she won the 1984 World Championship. I purchased this frame from Mike Fatka, who is verified as the official Raleigh Team Manager in the 84-85 seasons. I also lived at that time (83-86) about 10 miles from Huffy's world headquarters in Dayton, Ohio and often stopped in at the racing section before it moved to California. In my communications with Mike, he implies the Huffy/Raleigh relationship seemed somewhat distant at the time in 1984-85.
Raleigh in 1982-83 had already started its slow decline in worldwide sales before it was sold to a holding company. They needed extra cash for the parent company as its worldwide sales declined. Raleigh International had good distribution in specialized bike stores but had little if any sales through mass medchandisers like Sears, KMart, Walgreens, etc. This is why Raleigh accepted Huffy's offer to lease the Raleigh name in the USA - better revenue and distribution. At that time, Huffy was the #1 bike manufacturer in the USA based on volume sales of frames and earned revenue.
From a purely marketing standpoint, I know that Huffy tried to purchase credibility in producing high quality bikes by leasing the USA franchise marketing rights to the Raleigh name and logo. Raleigh wanted the mass-market distribution in the USA and Huffy wanted a prestigious line to carry as their top line bike and better market penetration into smaller bike shops.
However, Huffy found in 1984-85 that marketing and merchandising the Raleigh name was too expensive for corporate budgets based on the anticipated revenue. Mass-merchandising principles do not work well in Mom and Pop bike shops. Huffy had great experience in mass marketing but little understanding of the special needs of bike stores. Huffy ended up giving back the USA marketing rights because they chose not to support the Raleigh marquee through advertising and marketing. Thus ended the Huffy grand experiment into buying a quality name like Raleigh.