Yes...and this SEEMS to confirm my suspicions, that there is nothing inherently mechanically wrong with central supercharging...which now brings me to an idea I've long had:
with Mechanical supercharging, you have to 'lose some to win more'. In other words, you have to spend about 150 hp to run your supercharger from the engine, in order to get back 250-300 hp. Extra Hp, 100-150.
What if you ran the supercharger from a SEPARATE, smaller, auxiliary engine? You would get the full 300 hp benefit, but suffer the weight penalty for an additional auxiliary engine. This may not improve power to weight ratio - in fact it might well worsen it - but there are situations in aircraft design where you need 'power at any cost' rather than 'power at the best power to weight ratio'.
One possible example to think about. If central supercharging had been used for the B-29, may it not have been possible to put four narrow merlins with 2,000 hp each inside the wings of the B-29, like the design of the B-36? IMHO the weight penalty would have been more than offset by the tremendous drag reduction.