Yes and no. If you take any small family from 1930 to the 1950s, you can see they had internal strifes until those members in the family are either killed or finally died from natural causes. Narcotics is always a big money maker and that allowed the FBN to get involved and cultivate their own informants. When the FBI got involved that gave every boss more headaches. What allowed the smaller families to operate was corruption, more room to spread out so hardly anyone was stepping on someone else's shoes, and stronger blood ties between members of those families. When talking about eastcoast, you have to not just mentioned New York, but New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Florida (Miami), where there is alot of members belonging to different families operating in those states and do step on other members toes more often. When the FBI got involved and scrutinized the families more, you can see guys backed by New York, Chicago or Buffalo get the top spot, by capos realizing that such and such has backing from three commission members or more, so they just vote for that person and convey to their crew members in subtle veil threats if they plan on voting someone else that it is in their best interest to vote for the guy backed up by a majority of Commission members. The FBI put so much strain and pressure on bosses that those bosses made mistakes and errors in their own judgment that angered members in their families, thus if they were not careful how they handled the situation within their own family there could be a revolt against their leadership. Take Buffalo for one example. Magaddino was so preoccupied with Canada and the Bonanno family that he neglected some of his key areas such as Rochester which split from his family, the feds shined light on what he was doing with the money that was supposed to be for the crime family. Another example is Chicago, the feds hounded Giancana so much that he could not think clear as time went on and he fell for their trap. Over the years, the members of his crime family were growing angry at his antics until finally they removed him peaceful from the boss spot. Los Angeles, Desimone decided to distance himself from low level members of his family and only use his Underboss and Consigliere as messengers to avoid law enforcement, which was a bad move as this created resentment from members of his family and he decline the family to get involved in new rackets, deals, and business partner relationships with other groups that it weakened the LA family just to avoid the law. Marcello is talked alot in this thread, but his leadership had been challenged twice during his reign and he only remained as boss because the commission members ruled that he remain boss of New Orleans and his detractors honoured the Commission ruling in both cases.