Whew this turned into an epic flame war sweet!
I like all the engines. I think the Cleveland is neat. I think the boss302 is neat. The 340 is cool. And the Chevy.... you can build a freaking monster of an engine out of a sb Chevy hard to argue with that aftermarket support.
I don't know why people get so up in arms. All these factory engines had shortcomings, especially from the 50s-70s. They're still cool, they all still respond to the same stuff which is what is so fun.
And as far as history is concerned, I can tell you that whatever you think about "your side" and "their side", reality was probably somewhere in between the extremes. Be happy your genepool made it through all the wars.