Pace:
Sorry but the Wiz is right on this one (but never mind the man behind the curtain! - sorry, couldn't resist). When you do flight test to determine Vy, you do climb testing at various airspeeds and construct the total drag curve shown in the reference he cited. The bottom of that curve is Vy and it gets published in the books. Vyse is determined in a similar manner with one engine out which automatically takes into account the added drag of using rudder to counteract the yaw moment. So there's no way to reduce drag by deviating from the blueline speed. Hence, if you're not able to climb at Vyse, reducing your AOA is going to result in a loss in altitude that you will not be able to regain. Not a good situation.
However, what I think your fighter jock friend was getting at is that for many airplanes, the bottom of that curve is rather flat. That means that if you have a little excess power available (i.e. a positive rate of climb at Vyse), you might be able to gain a significant amount of airspeed if you level off. But this effect can - and probably does - vary quite a bit between aircraft. On some it might work great. On others, it might not be worth it. Therefore it's not something you could teach folks to do unless you were willing to submit to requiring a type rating each aircraft.