This campaign's most lasting moment illustrated the transitional state of Northern politics.
When the DUP set their bear trap outside David Trimble's headquarters, they probably did indeed hope he would come stalking out to face them, a trifle pinkish at the head of unlikely street fighters, to attempt the game Ian Paisley's ageing boys learned at the Big Man's knee - the delivery of coarse mockery at full volume with a bit of pushing and shoving thrown in, crowd cover permitting. They got more than they bargained for.
Did clever Peter Robinson imagine the pictures that made the television news and photos might help his plans? In fairness, we must suppose not. Neither sight nor sound was pretty. A mild-mannered grocer, dutiful voter and anxious unionist lamented the sound to his customers. He had only heard, not seen, "the fracas", as he quoted the BBC's first report, mimicking the unfamiliar word with despair and derision. But he was not amused. "I have to vote for these people," he said. "Do you know, I think I'll not bother my head, I'll stay in the house."
He was offended by the childishness: "The ignorance of it. Shouting at each other in the street - what kind of carry-on is that for people supposed to be our leaders?" The pictures added an indelible image. The dog that didn't bark was easier to spot: for the first time in half a century of public appearances there was no sound from Ian Paisley. Here was the stuff of which he has made his career, a slanging-match that left no one looking dignified.
The difference in the year 2003, his 77th, was that Mr Paisley's underlings did the slanging for him. From the moment the UUP leader arrived, when the DUP leader paused mid-sentence, reading a statement where once he would have improvised delightedly, the ravages that time has wrought glared out. The still massive head jerked round. The words stopped and didn't start again.
The sub-text was that Mr Trimble had been looking for a televised confrontation since the campaign began. Mr Paisley had never been available. "Why are you hiding, Ian? I see the monkeys but where's the organ-grinder?" Mr Trimble shouted, smile clamped in place.
Inches away Mr Robinson responded wittily: "I'd rather be a monkey than a buffoon like you." Big Ian was the bystander while the fracas played out, now shrunken shoulders drooping, the mouth which for 30 years has yelled "Judas" at every Trimble predecessor keeping up for the audience a thin, mechanicalversion of what was once described as a cavernous laugh.
In that stark image, the biggest figure in every Northern election for the past 30 years looked very like the Wizard of Oz, a now quite small person shivering in his own shadow.
Within 24 hours, of course, he was also doing what he still can do flamboyantly well. He electioneered in trademark style through Mr Trimble's disaffected constituency town of Portadown. What other politician would sing Happy Birthday in the street to someone considerably older, a happily met 90-year-old woman with sparkling eyes clutched to his great-coated bosom.
The outcome of the election will determine the residual importance of the Paisley mystique, the state of that once awesome charisma. Perhaps the minding of him throughout the campaign and his absence at strategic moments helped determine the final DUP vote. Is Peter Robinson an autonomous being with his own ideas about where no compromise shades into necessary deal, or still the smart boy who runs the office grown old in service but with notions beyond his station? There has been a lot of posturing.
The cadre of Robinsonites seem engaged in an imitation of the Adams-McGuinness republican leadership in the early days of the peace process: tilt towards moderation, then tip back and feed "the base" some soundbites of old aggression.
There are few takers for the proposition that Mr Robinson can fully emerge as his own man while his leader remains in the top post - or even, some would say, while the big man walks the Earth.
But then, for innovators who once dealt only in absolutes, life quite rightly will always throw up some challenges. A pleasurable sight for many was that of the unembarrassable Martin McGuinness briefly at a loss in front of the cameras. Questions about membership of the IRA are easy now, but when a young journalist with an open face and mild Vermont accent asked him why he'd left the IRA, there was no answer for a telling moment. "Family reasons" wasn't nearly as compelling as those baffled blue eyes.
A friend jokingly e-mailed the young question-master: "The eyes said 'I've just rejoined, and you're the first person I'm going to shoot'."