Lifter vs. top lever

[jeffery c]

I have finally owned a lifter for a few months now.
Now, for me, the lifter is a design I like to operate: fast, easy to open. I wonder why Parker went away from the lifter? From a design point of view the top lever added parts and had a less direct acting mechanism. Maybe this decision to change was driven by the market, as the top lever was considered more modern then and Parker felt the need to compete?
I’d welcome anyone’s thoughts on the lifter guns operationally and am especially interested if anyone knows about Parker’s decision making process during the change to the top lever.