How good a plane was the P-40, really?

My brother Mark and I argued (in a friendly manner) about the virtues of the Curtiss P-40 for many years. It all started with the movie "God is My Copilot," which aired quite a number of times over the 1950s and 60s on WRAL-TV here in Raleigh, NC. This was, without question, one of our favorite war movies on WRAL's late-late shows... usually on Friday or Saturday nights. I remember that we wrote to the television station requesting that they air the movie and, by George, several weeks or so later we cracked open our TV Guide and found that the station had scheduled what was likely a 16mm print of the movie to be run.

As preteens (and teens), Mark and I were very much into plastic models. We had purchased Aurora kits of the P-40 (Mark) and F4F Wildcat (myself). We also both had read Great American Fighter Pilots of World War II by Robert Loomis... and thus the good-natured debate ensued regarding the relative greatness of these two aircraft.