Yeah, lets not go too far with this "its the pilot, not the plane" business.
There are some matchups where the one player MUST make a grave mistake to give the fight to the other guy, while the other must simply avoid making mistakes.
Extreme example: Spit16 vrs a 190A5. Or a P-51/Jug/Dora that doesn't run. There are multiple ways for Spitfire to win this (In energy building or turning, it enjoys superiority, so any strategy you want to use is liable to work), and only a few ways for it to loose. (Really bad merge, failure to control throttle and overshooting, trying to HO the 190...hmmm....those are the only three I can think of.)
I notice is a tendency to take early-war kites, which often turn very well compared to their late war counterparts (Spit5 vrs. Spit16, 109F vrs 109K, P-40 vrs. P-51, you get the idea), and entice late war bricks into turning fights. Well sorry, horsepower (for whatever reason) is a harder advantage to use than turning superiority for most people in sim dogfighting. Once the higher wing-loaded plane is persuaded to t'n'b and the running windown is firmly shut, there is no "magic" to shooting it down.
No piloting can make any slower plane catch a faster one in the usual scenario where they WILL run if you latch on and running looks viable, of course.