This post from Peter David entitled "Left Scratching My Head" has me doing the same thing. In it, he laments, "I had just about managed to grasp the notion that DC didn't believe in the return of Kara Zor-El in "Supergirl" as remotely marketable until I did it, whereupon they canceled the comic and then did it again in a new series..."

This seems to be missing the point rather grandly; David's Kara Zor-El story involved the actual, honest-to-Rao Silver Age Supergirl arriving in the modern-day DC Universe through a Hypertime MacGuffin. And when I say actual, honest-to-Rao, I mean it -- she arrived, basically, between panels of 1959's Action Comics #259. That's not a criticism of David's story, but it does seem rather more complex an origin than DC might want for such a recognizable character. Isn't it more likely that the sales success of David's Kara Zor-El story led DC to decide to bring an updated version of the character into its current continuity?