Early considerations of the geometry of hypervalent molecules returned familiar arrangements that were well explained by the VSEPR model for atomic bonding.  Accordingly, AB and AB type molecules would possess a trigonal bi-pyramidal and octahedral geometry, respectively. However, in order to account for the observed bond angles, bond lengths and apparent violation of the Lewis octet rule, several alternative models have been proposed.
In the 1950s an expanded valence shell treatment of hypervalent bonding was adduced to explain the molecular architecture, where the central atom of penta- and hexacoordinated molecules would utilize d AOs in addition to s and p AOs. However, advances in the study of ab initio calculations have revealed that the contribution of d-orbitals to hypervalent bonding is too small to describe the bonding properties, and this description is now regarded as much less important.  It was shown that in the case of hexacoordinated SF, d-orbitals are not involved in S-F bond formation, but charge transfer between the sulfur and fluorine atoms and the apposite resonance structures were able to account for the hypervalency (See below).
Additional modifications to the octet rule have been attempted to involve ionic characteristics in hypervalent bonding. As one of these modifications, in 1951, the concept of the 3-center 4-electron (3c-4e) bond, which described hypervalent bonding with a qualitative molecular orbital, was proposed. The 3c-4e bond is described as three molecular orbitals given by the combination of a p atomic orbital on the central atom and an atomic orbital from each of the two ligands on opposite sides of the central atom. Only one of the two pairs of electrons is occupying a molecular orbital that involves bonding to the central atom, the second pair being non-bonding and occupying a molecular orbital composed of only atomic orbitals from the two ligands. This model in which the octet rule is preserved was also advocated by Musher.