I agree with you there, it's like a bad infomercial where they stumbled around, scratching their heads to make 500 hp until they pullout the all new shiny 4" crank then everything goes easy as pie :)
I don't get why people over sale the hardship of less displacement they make it sound near impossible just be realistic.
There's reasons to go either way and the OP has to figure out which way sounds more like him.