STM excels in explanatory breadth, individual variability, and unifying disconnected findings. Its novelty lies in framing schizophrenia as an emergent system breakdown from chronic overload in sensitive individuals.
 

Traditional models (e.g., dopamine, diathesis-stress) are more empirically grounded in specific mechanisms but lack full-spectrum explanatory power.
 

Predictive coding is theoretically strong but abstract and hard to translate clinically.
 

STM's main weakness remains its lack of empirical trials and operational definitions, but conceptually it may offer the most integrative and forward-compatible framework.