There is a lot of magic that surrounds the P51. The range is irrefutable, but to be honest the performance was really pretty average and in some cases not up to the performance standard set by several late-war fighters. It arguably was a one-trick pony in that range was its party piece.

It also had a limited armament weight, six .50s compared to eight on a Jug which also had a significantly higher overall time-to-empty ammunition capacity. The Mustang wasn't as robust as many fighters, either.

Where even the range advantage started falling apart was the ability of the P47 to lift far more, so with the external stores a P47N could lift, its range went from a "mere" 800 miles internal to beyond the 2300 mile mark, something a Mustang couldn't match simply because it couldn't carry the external load. I believe the N was faster, too, and everyone likes fast.

Ah, but the P51 is very pretty. I'm just not affected by the mythology that it was the be-all-end-all that the WWII historians place on such a pedestal.