Lotta folks like to take a little bit of info and take it out of context as well.
Not trying to single you out Joe/autoholic, but comparing the stroke of a 390 vs 445 for instance, doesn't require a F1 race engine reference. Not that you aren't correct, but the application makes it irrelevant. I'm pretty certain I'd prefer a 500hp 445 in my Galaxie over a 500hp F1 engine 
Just like the recent debate (which was awesome and informative much like this thread) about Iron VS Aluminum blocks.
I can totally see where the aluminum block doesn't make as much power.... makes total sense. The references to top tier race engines tho do not hold much for those of us looking at a 550-600hp 482 engine. In their scenario there may be a 30-40hp difference, but for a 550hp 482 that I'd toss together there might only be a 5hp difference, or none at all.
It wasn't about the application. The whole point was the vast difference between 6000 rpm 16000 rpm and the stroke is roughly different by an inch to two inches. So there is something to be said about short stroke engines revving higher and faster. In the same post though, I pointed out that a half inch difference in stroke might not make too big of an impact on how fast or how high and engine can rev. It will certainly make a decent difference in power output but the way the engine responds might not be as predictable as my other example. So I'm bringing up the point that the saying shorter strokes will rev faster and higher might be dependent upon how big of a difference are we talking? Jay has already shared info that his bigger stroke SOHC responds faster.
If we really want to get into the math behind what is possible with any stroke, we can look at the equation for mean piston speed. MPS = 2*stroke*RPM. Racing engines and high performance engines will range from 20 m/s to 30 m/s. You can find the MPS of some high performance engines to give you an idea. For an engine you want to put in a street car, I wouldn't push it much past 25 m/s. So if we use 25 m/s as our limit, the equation will look like this, with an example. This will tell you roughly how high you can run any stroke, it won't tell you about the stresses involved and how quick it will rev.
25.6 m/s = 2 * (96 mm / 1000) * (8000 rpm / 60)
The 1000 is a conversion from mm to m and the 60 is to convert rpm to rps. 96 mm is roughly the stroke for the 427 FE. The SOHC I believe can run this high without much of an issue and I've seen the valvetrain testing that says you can go higher if you use the right parts. At 9000 rpm, the 3.78" stroke has a mps of 28.8 m/s, which is probably only possible on racing gas. The coyote though for example runs something like 25.5 m/s at 7000 rpm.
I was doing some calculations on MPS and I remembered something from a Formula 1 documentary, I believe it was Cosworth behind it. They were struggling with reaching the RPM level they wanted (20,000 RPMs!!!). As they would get close to it, the engine would hit a wall. They were struggling with getting all of the fuel to burn. Their solution was to increase the fuel pressure. This increased the dynamic compression ratio and resulted in a better burn. Now the issue with increasing fuel pressure is that you most likely will increase the temperature of the combustion, so you have to watch out for this. It is something to think about for you guys though, increasing the fuel pressure could result in some rather nice gains. I'm not sure if I know of any practical ways to check combustion temps and pressures though...
