Check out some speeds in feet per second. It is was in reality a significant advantage as noted in the tactical trials:
Those that I can read are comparisons with spitfires, not F4U. P47s also rolled fast enough (or to be exact, spitfires rolled slow enough) for it to be an advantage as R. Johnson describes in his book. Still, 190s rolled better than jugs but as the roll rates get high enough this advantage becomes meaningless. The time advantage that a fast roll buys you really depends more on the slower roller, not the faster one.
"Manuverability" is an ill defined term that describes a pilot's feel more than anything. One must remember that mass air combat involved very little manuvering and a lot of flying around at full speed, trying to ID an enemy plane and bounce it, while trying to avoid being bounced yourself. The most important and common ACM was split-S and dive for the clouds - not very glorified but effective. This involves a 180 deg roll and so 190s could perform it so well against slow rollers like spits and P38, and get 2-3 seconds advantage from the faster roll. When P51, P47 and boosted P38 showed up, the time gained through the roll was much shorter and the manuver was much less effective. Robert Johnson describes it as a death manuver if they tried it vs. a P47 (and enough did to pad up his score).
Super uber roll rate will gain you nothing if the other plane can roll half decently. 190s had also other thing going for them (firpower, speed, zoom) when roll-rate became insignificant. They were not that one dimentional.
Bozon
