There was a third, most likely option.

They were neither poleis symbol nor Medieval

type of heraldry, but they communicated a message to others, in a similar way
tattoo does today.
In that sense they were personal because it was your own choice, but they weren't
usually that personalised as the fly anecdote implies, because many symbols were
shared.

How the artist treat the phenomenon of shield device is revealing in my opinion. He
uses the device to communicate with us in the same way warrios communicated with
his society 2500 years ago.
When you look at a bull, boar or lion, you pretty much know how or what that
warrior wants to look like, same is with bird or a rabbit. Swift legged was
apparently an important and impressive
quality of a warrior, as seen in Homer. We already had this discussion on wheel
symbol
a while ago, right?

So this is not simply based on the complete lack of evidence

for any official state or even clan symbols until very late in hoplite history.

Now, I can see the logic behind the claim some types of symbols were more popular
in certain places, on top of the bunch of symbols common for all.
But the claim is just a mere possibility, one that I've never heard being argued
persuasively. What I am absolutely sure is indefensible is the incredibly bold
attempt to identify fairly common symbols with particular Spartan morae(!?) or
clans from other places.

Just for context, by the time Sikyonians putting uniform sigmas (even if we
interpret it...) images posted above were 100 or more years old,
when not even their grandfathers were born. HOplites no longer used Corinthian, not
even Chalcidian helmets, shin guards/greaves and to cite philo