Assemblywoman Brid Rodgers concedes the gap in the SDLP's ranks behind the highly committed first generation, but pleads historical justification.
"That generation had to go through 25 years of political desert with, most of the time, no politics or political forum and no prospect of a political career or paid political position. At the same time, as politicians, they attracted blame for the violence, and were targets themselves." Not many people were keen to join them, she argues, while admitting that the insecurity of those who carved out positions with such difficulty may have been a deterrent.
The difficulty of attracting recruits was doubly acute in the case of women - the subject of the party's other big criticism. She is now one of three SDLP women in the Assembly - but she rejects the popular impression that Sinn Fein has made greater efforts in this regard. "I've never seen the Sinn Fein leadership appear in public without being flanked by women. But with one exception [Bairbre De Brun], I've never heard any of them allowed to speak. They're always conscious of the need for PR, but the reality is Sinn Fein is as male-dominated as any other party."
A certain democratic deficit - not surprising, given the political vacuum - is another of the legacies of what Rodgers calls "the barren years", when John Hume was the party's only full-time politician.
There is almost universal gratitude in the SDLP that it had somebody of Hume's stature. But one source recalls meetings where members would debate an issue for a couple of hours, at the end of which the leader would produce a statement he'd prepared earlier, clearly informed by his close contacts with the Government and Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. "The rest of us would be wondering: what have we been doing for the last hour-and-a-half, and why did we give up half a day to come to the meeting? The statement would be exactly right, of course, but it was still bloody annoying."
Of its nature, the Hume-Adams process involved self-sacrifice for the SDLP - it was Alan Dukes's Tallaght Strategy multiplied by 10. And although the initiative is now well beyond reproach - from within or without - the SDLP as a party may not have finished paying the price.
At the same time, it is almost a mantra among activists that, when the institutions are up and running, they will give Sinn Fein a master class in real politics. As the most politically literate of all the North's parties, the SDLP is arguably best equipped for post-conflict politics - a recent MRBI poll showed uniquely high scores for the party in terms of its association in voters' minds with issues such as health, education and attracting investment.
Alex Attwood, who in West Belfast is competing against what he calls "the most ruthlessly organised base in Western Europe" puts it baldly: "We have to prove again and again that we're better than Sinn Fein, because we are."
Sean Farren, who is in any case scornful of predictions of the SDLP being overtaken, says: "I've been reading about it since 1980, and it hasn't happened yet" and adds: "No party should be arrogant to the point where it believes it has an inalienable right to a certain level of support. People will judge us on our record. But I don't see any other party that takes the trouble to put forward social and economic policies that the SDLP does. Never in all our years in the wilderness did we ignore those issues. So I have no fear of Sinn Fein."
And Brid Rodgers is equally sanguine.
"The SDLP is by no means finished. We have knowingly risked our own electoral base in the interests of peace in Ireland and the greater good. But in the new political dispensation, we will continue to be ground-breakers.
"We'll be competing with Sinn Fein but we'll be competing with them in an area where we're at our best. We're just getting up steam again."