Respectfully, Virgin would have been eaten up by QF at both ends. Keeping a sole LCC business would have ended in failure. You can't argue this. There was nothing to save, and margins were not growing at Virgin (look back at their annual reports to see). Growing cASK, declining rASK, barley enough operating cash flow - what else could he do. And if he did not do what he did - someone else would have.
You point out some specific examples, that in "retrospective eyes" did not turn out as planned - but that is called having courage to try things. Qantas has done the same, and failed at many also.
I speak to the vision of replicating the successful Qantas model of high-end and low-end market servicing. Required in this country. We just do not have the population, or the advantages of hubs. And out cost base in this country is very high, and we get punished on forex. Lots of disadvantages operating in Australia.