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Re: Questions re Polikarpov-fighters.
"It is a a reasonable conclusion that the Soviet airforce would have been better off with a fully developed design (I-180), rather than immature designs that were not ready, (MiG, Lagg & Yak), although the expected performance was slightly lower."
It would be a reasonable conclusion if the I-180 was indeed a fully-developed design: I'm not convinced that is a fair description. As an aero engineer, the Polikarpov designs (and the MiG 3 is little better) all look to be lacking in longitudinal and directional unstablity, something confirmed by pilots' and engineers' comments on the difficulty they presented to inexperienced pilots. Arguably dead novices are a fair trade-off against agility.
Whether the airframe could have been in production, in the numbers and timeframe you suggest, I leave to others to judge. I'm sceptical. However, if there are no engines it doesn't matter how good the airframe.
On the other matter, as far as I know the VG.33 used conventional wood/plywood construction, and not the Russian resin-impregnated birch. Interior structures can be expected to be similar, although the types of wood used (and hence the details) may be different, depending upon the sources available to each nation. I believe the balsa/spruce sandwich construction of the Mosquito was completely different.
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