My guess is that this belongs in the Race section.

For those that have a BIG inch street engine, at least 500 inch if not 572, with high compression,
say above 11-11.5 to 1, if not above 13:1.

Under WOT, these engines will typically make so much power that, when driving on public streets,
you really only very rarely actually use WOT. So if you are mostly putting around under part throttle high
manifold vacuum conditions, isn't this what actually allows the engine to not detonate on pump gas ?
Not so much a big cam bleeding off cylinder pressure, but high vacuum conditions ?

At some point (manifold vacuum), a 14:1 engine at part throttle will make less cylinder pressure
than an 8:1 engine at WOT, and therefore will not require race gas octane.

But if the engine is big enough, even at high manifold vacuum it will make "enough" power for
spirited street driving. A "restricted" engine.

Isn't it true that even a long duration cam will still show high manifold vacuum with the throttle mostly closed ? Above idle that is.

By the same token, if you actually are at WOT for some time interval, maybe 5 seconds, the engine will indeed
build enough heat to then require much higher octane at that point.

Somewhere in here I have a question, I don't think I'm putting it into words very well.