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...Actually I don't really give a stuff what mine's putting down at the rubber at the moment, that's a bit of a sweeping statement for me and not meaningless at all.
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I dont get what you're saying here.
It sounds like you're saying that you DONT care about 'at the wheel' power (which is directly measured, and indisputable), but you DO care about supposed 'flywheel horsepower', which is the 'at the wheels' figure plus an imaginary percentage, plucked out of the air by the dyno operator.
Assuming you were concerned with a rough estimate of 'at the engine' power, 15% would be a more realistic percentage to add to the 'wheels' power figure.
And yes, power at the engine is well and truly irrelevant.
Lets say that you had two different engine/gearbox combos to choose from for a particular car.
One was a 200hp engine, mated to a gearbox which allowed it to have 180hp at the wheels.
the next engine is a 220hp engine, with a gearbox with marmelade and sand used as gearbox oil, which means it's still got 180hp ATW.
The 220hp engine aint gonna be any faster if it's only got the same HP ATW.
The reality is, that there's no way to measure flywheel horsepower with any degree of accuracy, apart from on an engine dyno. Anything else is mere speculation. And irrelevant anyway, it's the power that you can get to the wheels which is important.
P.S. I reccomend checking out some of the power/dyno articles down the page of pumaracing.co.uk