bearfoil, I missed this the first time I read it. When I was reading RetiredF4 reply to you this quote REALLY bugged me: "This is a heavy a/c with beaucoups energy to sustain a short climb of 3k feet?"
What does mass have to do with the price of altitude in terms of speed change?
Kinetic energy is 1/2 mV^2. Potential energy is mgh. So the mass washes out of the equation. So a 3000' climb would give "gh" = 1/2 v^2 = 96000 ft^2/s^2 equals about a 438 '/s velocity change or about 300 MPH.
Of course a clean heavy aircraft will have this simple equation modified less by air friction than might a nerf ball. But somehow I figure military fighter jets are not nerf balls either. I'd expect the military jet tradeoff to be pretty close to the AirBus tradeoff in terms of altitude gain and velocity lost.
But, then, what do I know? I'm just an engineer.