hempy,
Your #8:
"I'm pretty sure the Germans tried to go down the 'tactical only' route".
The Japanese Army command in Burma were similarly blinkered. Although they had a number of the excellent Nakajima "Oscars" (almost unknown now), which were (on paper) at least as good as their better known marine counterparts, the "Zeros", at their disposal, they frittered them away on "hit and run" LL attacks on opportunity targets.
Their main effort was directed against our airfields (most of these were just "kutcha"strips bulldozed out of the paddy-fields). As our aircraft were always well dispersed, they did little damage. Whereas, if they'd have put them up to 10-12,000 over the ground battle areas, and waited for a box of our six VVS to come along, they would have got rich pickings.
Right to the end, this never occurred to them (
AFAIK), which was just as well for us. "Why not" was another of the many unsolved mysteries of war.
Danny.