Both were great ideas. The US aviation at that time were mostly trained to do interception because the fear in that time was the long range strategical bombers. The concepts of BFM that where known in WW2 was unknown for the new pilots.

I think defeat is from where you learn the most. And the US learnt a lot of strategies for modern combat from there. And also modified all their training from there and their weapons design.

Porque no los dos?