My shifting technique? Cars and pickups are all so over powered that you don't need a shifting technique. When you drive something big, you use it all. If your shifting technique involves keeping the engine around the torque peak you'll never get it out of first gear. Go ask a trucker if he would rather have his torque-peak 100rpm lower or another 100rpm on the top end. Chances are, he doesn't even know what his torque is. He probably knows he has 375hp and wishes he had 475hp. Until recently, they didn't even publish torque figures and some still may not. Go look at the certification tags on the engines.
We were talking about diesel pickups which, presumably, are meant to haul loads. Now you are talking about Fox body Mustangs. It only matters if the engine isn't matched to the drivetrain and doesn't have the right gear to actually see maximum horsepower. For a street car definately having a bigger, lower rpm engine is more useful and fun. On the strip, with each car set up for it's particular engine, they will reach the trap at the same time.
Horsepower isn't torque at a given speed. Torque isn't work. Work is force (torque) and distance. Horsepower is torque, distance and time. However you get there doesn't matter. The way you get the load to the top of the hill in as brief a time as possible, or to the end of the 1/4-mile, is with horsepower, period. The engine's characteristics, whatever they are, are dealt with via the transmission and axle gearing.
Hp is a 3-legged stool and torque is only one leg of it. My 200# granny standing on a 4' lever is good for 800ft#.