Influence of engines on the maneuverability of F-14A and F-14D

Hello everyone. I had been a reader of this forum for years, however it was the recent discussion in “What’s the difference between energy–maneuverability theory & Supermaneuverability” that encouraged me to finally join the forum community. I must admit that I’m a complete novice in the topic of aerodynamics, since my main interest lays usually in history of aviation programs. Nevertheless the discussion in the mentioned topic (especially at the beginning) gave me a hope that I will be able to get answers to some of the questions that are of high interest for me.
One of my all-time favorites is the F-14 Tomcat. For a long time I was looking for the E-M diagrams of this plane, as it seemed to me that there is a lot of argument considering its maneuverability. From what I see, the consensus is that while it represented a step ahead in comparison to the previous generation of fighters e.g. F-4 or MiG-21, it is not considered to be on par with the rest of teen-fighters or MiG-29 and Su-27. For a long time the only E-M diagram which I was able to find was this one:
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It is the one from the NAVAIR 01-F14AAP-1.1 manual for F-14D with General Electric F110 engines. It should be noted, that the diagram is for the configuration with 4 AIM-9 and 4 AIM-7, what translates to the drag index equal to 44. I was really surprised, as after comparison with the E-M diagrams for e.g. F-16 block 50 for similar configuration (Drag index equal to 50):
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it turned out, that the Super Tomcat enjoyed the low-speed advantage in ITR up to about 0.65M (even with the Navy imposed 6.5G limit, which was far from both projected structural limit of about 7.5G and 9G limit during test flights). Similar situation can be observed for the STR, where F-14 again reaches its maximum at relatively low speed of 0.6M (15 deg/s), while the F-16 clearly dominates the higher speeds with STR of 14.3 deg/s at about 0.85M (where Tomcat is below 13 deg/s). While of course it can be argued, that the maneuverability at higher speeds is more desirable, I think it is safe to say that overall the F-14D is more or less in the same class in terms of turn rates.
Still, we are talking about D-version, the one that finally get a suitable engine. The F110-GE-400 delivered about 28200 lbs on reheat, what translates into TWR at gross weight of about 1.01. But what about the legacy version? The F-14A was equipped with the TF30-P414A engines with the maximum thrust of 20900 lbs (a rather optimistic value taken from the book by David Baker), what at gross weight of 53873 lbs (the F-14A was slightly lighter) gives TWR of 0.78. While of course these are values calculated for static thrust values, one can expect a drastic difference in terms of agility between F-14A and F-14D. However, after long searches I was finally able to find E-M diagrams for F-14A and to my surprise they turned out to be nearly identical at 5000 feet. Here is the comparison:
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The differences are marginal, the F-14D enjoys a slight advantage for each value of specific excess power, but it doesn’t translate into higher maximum STR values. I started to wonder, what is wrong? The TF30 was known for its good performance at low level, with the values of installed thrust at sea level (at speed of 0.9M) being given by Stevenson at 28000 lbs, so maybe the small differences at low level can be justified to some extent. However, at high altitudes (e.g. 25000 fts) the advantage of F110 should be clearly visible. But guess what:
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Again, the differences are negligible, with only small advantage for F-14D. It is obvious, that even if the numbers are the same, the Super Tomcat was in another league in comparison to the legacy model, as the F110 allowed much more care-free handling than the stall-prone TF30 (although I think that these E-M diagrams to some extent debunks the myth of sluggish F-14A). But can anyone explain, how can the E-M diagrams be practically not influenced by the 34% increase in static thrust? Or name another example of such situation? Or maybe there is something wrong with the data (even though it is taken from the NAVAIR manuals) or my interpretation of it?