Vin,
It's not just what you described. In my opinion it has a lot to do with form.
Kurt Wolff was in bloodform in April, and never reached those heights again. After April, he had 27 or 28 victories. When he died 4 and a half months later, he had added only 5 or 6 more. And in a letter to his beloved just before his end, he wrote that he had a spell of bad luck as he had tangled with at least 20 Englishmen without bringing one down (source: Jan Hayzlett's translation of "Jagd in Flanders Himmel").
There were the steady performers like Pippart and the star shooters who were more dependent upon form like
Karl Thom.
Barrett:
Is Graf Punsky still alive? He was quite the character. Barbarossa was indeed a splendid time for him and he already had 60+ victories by the time Hartmann was assigned to fly with him. And he is one of the aces who managed to score and lead succesfully on both fronts, both in elite units (JG52 and JG26). Many others didn't survive the transition of fronts.
Of course you already knew that, but is he still alive and can he be spoken too?
Kind regards,
Reinout