Feral
It does a mans heart good to realise that there are still people out there who remember that Ricardo really was the man behind the advances in combustion control, & since he was hampered with the low octane fuels of the day, he did it with science.
As to your last sentence, i couldn't possibly agree more.

Chrysler was a very early adopter of the Ricardo cylinder head design for their side valve 6 cylinder engines in about 1926 or so, & this design was a "high swirl" type. In more recent times, i have owned a brace of Moto Morini motorcycles. These were a brilliant V twin engine with a Herron head design. They also used a 'High Swirl" concept, but did it with clever port design as well as a squish chamber. The side valve engines did it with squish alone. Both of these engine designs were able to successfully run substantially more compression than other designs. With Chrysler, they were offering the optional "Red Head" with 6.5 to 1 at a time when others were struggling with slightly better than 5 to 1. The Morini's ran 10 to 1 in an air cooled motorcycle engine, & thats about 3 full points better than most could handle at the time on the same fuel.

Henry Ford refused to pay Ricardo for a licence to use his patent & as a result, model T's had 3.3 to 1 compression & the later Model A's were struggling to prevent detonation at about 4 to 1 with their open chamber heads.

Ricardo, the genius who's name deserves to be better known to automotive enthuisiasts everywhere.

I occasionally wonder if we could benefit from remembering his discoveries & incorporate the high swirl principals into our head modifications by trying to ensure that there is some squish chamber present. Not always easy, but worth a thought.
Chris