Salute!
Some good stuff here, and I can prolly claim more time at 9 gees than most. So I have seen the suits and feel to comment.
The standard suit must have been around for about 30 - 40 years. Figure 60's to 200x or so. I wore my first one early 1972 and last one 1984.
The ones I wore did not change until the early 200x years when we had the Raptor and later model Vipers and Hornets. I was there for the first documented gee-loc events, and was in back seat for one. The Eagle and Viper provided us with extended high gee engagements -figure 4 or 5 minutes at almost constant 4,5 6 gees. The 9 gee bat turn we had in the Viper was good for a defensive move, but most engagements saw 6,7 gees for a good turn and then the lower gees for another two or three minutes. All those were sloppy engagements, as you shoukld not be turning and burning for 3 minutes unless you started completely on the defensive.
We discovered that "clinching" the chest right away and also the neck was the best defense agaist gee-loc. The lower body bladders helped during prolonged engagements, and we woukld use the "test" button to pre-inflate those suckers just prior to the merge or earlier if we were on the offense versus an ususpecting bandit.
The new gear has bladders up on the chest to help more blood staying in the brain and you don't have to "clinch" as hard. They are also faster to inflate.
Gums remembers....