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This paper offers an extensive analysis of the reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European word-initial cluster *sk- in Proto-Slavic. It is argued that the regular reflex of this cluster is the Proto-Slavic *x-, but that *sk- was analogously re-introduced in a great number of cases under the influence of prefixed forms and cases where forms with and without the so-called "s-mobile" co-existed in Slavic. This conclusion is in accordance with the fact that *x- < *sk- is far more common in derivationally isolated words that do not occur with prefixes.
This brief paper discusses the nature of linguistic typology and its relationship to historical linguistics. It argues that typology includes a historical component, and historical linguistics includes a typological component, as grammaticalization studies can be said to be diachronic typology and some concepts such as markedness can be used in understanding the development of morphological systems, but the main foci differ in terms of synchronic vs. diachronic considerations. Typology can be of some help with understanding the direction of change in language, but it cannot be used as a standard for what is possible/impossible when we are doing reconstructions, and typological features cannot be used for establishing genetic relatedness.
There is good reason to be ambivalent about the usefulness of general considerations in linguistic reconstruction. As a heuristic device, a theoretical framework can certainly be helpful, but the negative potential of aprioristic considerations must not be underestimated. E.g., there is a whole range of phenomena which receive a natural explanation when we assume that glottalization is ancient in Germanic. The methodological question is: why have scholars been reluctant to identify the vestjysk stød with the English glottalization as a historical reality which may have been inherited from the proto-language? The role of general linguistics is to provide an idea of what can be expected in linguistic development, not by theoretical reasoning but by inspection of what actually happens.