I echo Tim and Fleetwood Dan. They make great points.
Doesn’t matter that much if you’re talking '41 or '42. Zhukov seems to be referring to '41, the fantasy scenario. Even in '41, with less “cash”, I am known to buy 3 researchers J1. They have all the units they need, but how much more powerful if they can get their 9 fighters to be long range or jets? I’ve taken Hawaii in J1 in '41 with jets before.
Packrat, long range air with USA or Japan is devastating. In my experience, it’s more potent than heavy bombers, with those powers.
In my experience (at least 30 tech games) tech does not favor one side over the other. They can both afford their researchers, and both sides, as pointed out, get huge boosts from certain techs.