I've read this entire thread with great interest. Here's my two cents worth.
There was a time, some years ago, when I spent several days a week for more than a year, at what, at the time, was called Roush's Prototype Shop. I was doing a series of articles for Mustang Illustrated Magazine, and the work was being done at that facility. The engine I was working on was an FE and a large contingent of the original FE performance engineers had been persuaded to take early retirement and go to work for Jack. With very little notice, I could call any or all of them and use them as a 'brain trust' to get me forward.
Another function there, at the time, was building all the NASCAR engines. Although I saw the insides of those engines virtually every day, including some things that were developed there and manufactured 'in-house', and completely proprietary, I was trusted not to take pictures or otherwise talk about them. There were also nooks and crannies around where things were going on that were hidden from ALL eyes not directly involved.
Every once in a while, Jack would do a walk-through, and on occasion, I'd be invited to walk with him. At one point, while walking past one of the 'nooks', with the door firmly shut, jack remarked that the activity behind the door was focused on, as he said, 'oil pans and lower end oil control.' His statement was, "There's power to be found in properly controlling loose oil."
My own answer to lower-end oil control is to use a dry-sump system. Pull the oil away from the crank and handle it so as to remove otherwise entrained air, and make sure of an optimum amount of oil at optimum pressure at all the bearings, and you've done a good thing.
KS
