Realistic valvetrain expectations.

Now, I don’t know much about anything, but I’m gonna guess it’s the 40+ years of development in cylinder heads, fuel injection & tuning. It’s also noteworthy that the 600hp LS motors are often 427 inches, so they still have a displacement advantage over a 400” BBM.
We can throw injection and good flowing aftermarket heads on older engines. I just don't see where the difference is.

No need for big inches on LS engines to hit 600hp. A junkyard 6.2/378ci (ls3, l92, l9h, ect) with a cam swap will put out 570-585 at the crank no problem @ 6500rpm.