We investigate, at the second-order Moller-Plesset level, the bond length alternation of 30 series of increasingly long linear oligomers for a total of more than 250 compounds, polyacetylene, polymethineimine, polyphosphinoborane, polyaminoborane, polyphosphazene, etc., for which, often for the first time, an accurate estimate of the polymeric bond length alternation is given. The variations induced either by chemical substitution of the backbone atoms or conformational modifications are discussed. Only three polymers present a large bond length alternation (> 0.03 angstrom). Systematic basis set effects have been unravelled, i.e., MP2/6-311G(2d) always overshoots the bond length alternation. Best estimates of the bond length alternation are provided for more than a dozen of polymers.