[INM@RLM]

Thank you, FalkeEins, but I’m not absolutely sure what you are saying here. It sounds uncomfortably close to: If it’s short, it’s OK for it to be ….? But I don’t think you actually mean that.
One can as easily make the opposite argument. If what is on the Luftfahrt-Archiv Hafner He 177 Kompendium CD and in the RLM Monatsmeldungen for 1944 is radically at odds with the conventional story, why not use a short work as an ice-breaker to begin introducing a corrected picture?
To the start of your final sentence, a fair point, but one that I fear only confirms my inadequacy as an author. I clearly cannot write down what I mean clearly enough to get over what is actually in my head.
For me, to make the difference, it'll be the research and the spread of sources that will take the time not the writing. I believe a PhD in the UK, even pursued full-time, still typically takes three or four years. That should be about enough time to get close to bottoming the actual travails of the He 177.