[Blackdog_kt]

Yup, that's pretty much the way i tend to see it when theorizing about it. The difference was that the man with the funny mustache was expecting a sudden rebound and counterattack in his paranoia, while people like Galland were realists and were pushing for a different outcome: a stalemate in the west, maybe going as far as ensuring a separate peace agreement, so that they could concentrate on holding off the Soviets.

The 262 still couldn't win the war, but when the LW almost crippled the 8th AF bomber offensive with prop fighters alone up until the arrival of a long range allied escort, it's obvious that they would have benefitted greatly from having 262s in sufficient numbers.
The reasons the 8th AF loss figures dropped and the disasters of the Regensburg and Schweinfurt raids were not repeated is exactly what you guys are pointing out, long range meant a bunch of mustang groups roaming at will in big wolfpacks, able to cover the bombers all the way to the targets. The 262 was the tool that although unable to directly take the mustangs out, it was perfectly capable of bypassing them entirely and nullifying their impact to a great extent. The real objective was the bombers.
If the LW was able to maintain a 10% atrrition rate against the 8th on most raids, the Normandy landings would have been delayed and German industrial production would have got a very significant respite (as evindeced by data that showed production rising even during the strategic bombing campaign under Speer's guidance).

However, there's an small tid-bit here that sometimes doesn't get enough recognition and it's pretty important, as even if enough 262s and capable pilots were available it would still put a serious dent in LW's plans.

Near the end of the war, allied fighters operated mostly in advance fighter sweeps and not close escort. Some people in the brass fought tooth and nail to convince their peers to "set the fighters free" as they put it. Not easy to convince people about that when it had become clear that unescorted bombers resulted in prohibitive loss figures. However, it proved to be very effective, because it's exactly this strategy that enabled the allies to camp LW bases and deny them a safe haven. Regardless of the range of the pony, if they stuck to operating them in the close and top cover escort roles there wouldn't be mustangs camping over the 262 bases to catch them at their most vulnerable.

In brief, if the hardware is good enough and compares well to contemporary adversaries, the outcome rests mainly on the application of said hardware. It seems to me that it's actually two factors, the flawed application of the 262 that delayed its production and the waste of experienced LW aircrew in the ardennes offensive, coupled with the new doctrine in allied fighter operations favoring advanced roaming squads instead of point defence, that really tipped the scale during the final months. In that sense, it's not the pony that won the war...it's the sound way it was employed in, combined with the faulty way the LW employed their jets.