There are bosses that are at least in my mind share numerous characteristics and are easy to group together. These being Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante, Angelo Bruno, Russell Bufalino, Simone DeCavalcante, Raymond Patriarca, John LaRocca, Nicholas Civella, Anthony Giordano and Frank Balistrieri. Of course there are differences between these guys but what they had in common I think is far greater: heads of small families for lengthy, yet relatively peaceful, periods of time. This is in contrast to the New York families who often had a violent change of leadership and periods of violence in the same era. So while the intrigue and violence are interesting in the New York families, I think it's just as interesting that these other guys managed to have long runs controlling their own, albeit small, empires.

Same mafia, but also different, ya know?

Perhaps that's what makes these families interesting?