Is Torque King?

I keep seeing people give misguided advise base on don't build engine A cause engine B will make more torque eg. . 340 vs 360 or 360 vs 408. For the most part torque is a useless number once HP curve is found from it.

There is a lot of reason to build HP at low rpm (torque engine) instead of high rpm thats why the factory kept going with larger engines over high rpm ones but a 400 hp engine is a 400 hp engine no matter if it's build with lots of torque at a low rpm or little torque at an high rpm both can do the same amount of work in the same amount of time eg... Accelerate your car (weight) in a certain amount of time ( E.T. ).

I think the problem is its easy for us to see HP and Torque as units of power or potential power but not RPM. But if you look at it like *this you want to move a 1000 tons of dirt a hundred miles away. And there's two trucks to do it (500 tons each) and one can move a 100 tons at 50 mph and the second truck can move 50 tons at a 100 mph. Both will move 500 tons in the same amount of time of 20 hrs but one will take 5 trips and the other 10 trips but both will do the same job. Trucks=engines......... Tons = torque....... Mph = rpm.........both are needed in some ratio to do the job moving 1000 tons a 100 miles in a certain amount of time 20hrs = Horsepower.

So when people ask about 318 vs 340/360, 340 vs 360 etc... Tell about gearing, stall speed, drive ability etc... Instead of 360 will make 30 lbs ft more than a 340 so a 340 is always doomed to lose cause it isn't true that's why they invent different gear ratios. And the main reason I wrote this a guy with a mild 360 wanted to know if his next step should be invest his money in the top end (heads) or bottom end (408 ) for more power and almost everyone agreed with the 408 and stock J heads instead of 360 and eddy rpm heads like it's magically gonna make more Power because it's larger.