Steady on there Courtney me old mucker. Do a bit of research into the background of Mr Sprey and you might have pause in challenging him on his claims.
What he and the other Fighter Mafia people did was, IMHO, way beyond your run of the mill PhD level research. Vertical manouevring and energy management were being used from the earliest days and certainly in WW2. However, nobody had the sheer determination to explain in terms of maths and physics why it worked and was therefore able to use it as a basis for teaching tactics and designing fighters. At an advanced stage in their research, they were able to quantify such variables as pilot cockpit visibility into the combat effectivenes of an aeroplane. In other words, they developed scientifically valid codes rigorously to describe what fighter aviators learned from experience and from each other.
Sadly, 'great men' in and out of uniform have a marked reluctance to listen to science and maths that get in the way of their plans to prove just how great they are.
It has been my view from the first time I heard of the JSF with the dead weight fan system that lunatics were influential in the management of the asylum. F-35 will only be an effective platform in airspace which is dominated by other types on its own side, IMHO. Since Boyd, Sprey, Hillaker, Rasperry et al have been ignored by the 'great and good', we are condemend to repeat mistakes until military budgets match the inflated egos of the politicians in and out of uniform.
This will occur when the the cows come home via hell frozen over and all overflown by tight formations of airborne porkers.