Interesting comments about Vauxhall being sort of the beginning of the wilderness years. I know that right around that time, Morrissey's management changed to Arnold Stiefel who managed some very huge acts. I specifically remember an article in the LA Times (probably just before or just after Vauxhall was released) claiming that his new management had plans to make Morrissey into a huge star, top 40 act. I was skeptical of that actually happening, or even that it was a good idea to try to force it to happen, but immediately after that claim was made, he just went completely off the cliff as far as being in the public eye. Just the complete opposite happened really. I am not an expert on why these things happen or on the music industry. I'm sure lack of touring for Vauxhall and Southpaw contributed but really the radio play, at least at KROQ which is a huge deal, really stopped. I think The More You Ignore Me was the last thing they really played a lot of if I'm not mistaken. Sure, they still had him come on for interviews for Maladjusted and premiered some of those songs, etc. but they never played another new song in heavy rotation.
As far as the original question, I am always surprised at the lack of support from fans on here for Billy Budd. I like it quite a lot and think it would have been quite good as a single. But that's just my opinion.