I read through all 11 pages of this thread with morning coffee or more factual, coffees. I was surprised the M got so little press. The M was even dogged by a couple of posters. The P47D40 is my go to plane in attack mode with its 2 thousand pound'ers an a extra 500 pound'er.
P47 people seem to be defensive of their choice. Not sure why I don't join the ranks of the spits, mustangs, Kis and 109s myself albeit I do enjoy a furbal in an La7.
In AH where, as noted many times, the good dogfights are below 10k, the best situation is being part of a fighter cap at 5-7K above an enemy field. With a full load of ammo it is like shooting fish in a barrel because you can make a pass and wep up on the other side as all know.
In an equal strength furbal the 47M with its wep and good starting E does well as long as the furbal is so intense that no one can saddle up on you for any length of time. When the intensity winds down, it is run time because those good turners with high climb rates is too much to handle. Run out and gain the E back at the right time which is hard to do for me do to a lack of discipline.
To me it seems the sweet spot for jugs is 5k to 8k then working down and 15K and up.
That is my take on it but not a lot of experience to back that up.