As the tenth year that follows the premature passing of the inorganic chemistry legend F. Albert (Al) Cotton comes to a close, we provide some soul food that we believe Al would have enjoyed as he looks down upon two generations of disciples, a grandchild and two great grandchildren, in his scientific family tree. This article also represents a new tradition by which the editors of Comments on Inorganic Chemistry wish to lead by example, whereby we start publishing original research content that nonetheless preserves the journal's identity as a niche for "critical discussion of the current literature" of inorganic chemistry. Thus, we show novel demonstrations of a posteriori validation and a priori prediction of possible counterintuitive covalent M-M' bonds-after and before synthesis, respectively-contrasted with non-covalent M•••M interactions of the metallophilic type in bridge-dimeric systems of d 10 metal centers. Mixing of (n + 1