Andy Sheets wrote:
The main problem with Lobdell on X-Men was that he never had a long-term idea of where he was going with his plots - he kept reiterating that he liked to write "organically" - so the books just meandered around without much really happening.
Yeah, after years of tight Claremont plotting and sub-plotting, the X-Men quickly devolved into a series of mindless events and random happenings.  Onslaught was a good example of this sort-of "organic" plotting where his name gets mentioned in a story without the writing/editorial staff having any idea who he is, leading to this kind of stupidity:

"All the other writers were intrigued, but when they demanded to know who Onslaught was, here is what Lobdell said:
I told them that I had no idea, but I just thought it was a cool way to open a story. Imagine someone so strong that they could hurl Juggernaut across the sky! I ended up doing that opening sequence, but I still didn't know who Onslaught was.

"That became a problem later on, when other writers were told to give hints to Onslaught in their titles, but didn't know who Onslaught WAS!

"Larry Hama's clues in Wolverine, in particular, really didn't jibe with the later revelation that Onslaught was Professor X himself, corrupted by Magneto's mind..."