Don't quite agree. The Zero was very good - when it came out. It had a range of over 1000 miles with drop tanks, 300mph performance, and outstanding low to medium speed manueverability. When it first appeared (1939) it was one of the premier fighters in the world. It's performance was so good for the time that when the US military was informed of the planes existance in early 1940 - and provided with photos and movies - it refused to accept that a plane with the reported performance could exist (documented in Martin Caiden's "Ragged Rugged Warriors")
US pilots always had better luck against the Zero than European and Asian pilots. Hell, the AVG was beating the crap out of Zeros with P-40B Tomahawks, a plane that in almost every regard was inferior to the Zero. Yet the British in Malasia, with pilots that had experianced the Battle of Britain and flying Hawker Huricanes, were literally cut to shreds by Zero pilots.
The Jap pilots were very very good (at least in 41 and 42), but so were a lot of the US pilots, and the Marine and Navy pilots in particular were extremely creative in figuring out how to get the best performance out of their aircraft. They were simply more creative than the average Jap pilot - although guys like Suboro Sakai (sp?) would have been top notch no matter what they flew.
The AVG never actually saw a Zero in combat, actually. The Japanese Navy did deploy Zeros to combat in China for a few months, but this was not at the same time or location the AVG was operating.
The AVG was up against the Japanese ARMY, which had no Zeros and never had any Zeros the entire war, and actually most of their kills were of Japanese Army Bombers and somewhat primitive Japanese Army Fighters that didn't have retractable landing gear. However like German "88s" in Europe (all German artillery was called 88s by American troops even when there were no 88s anywhere near them) for whatever reason all Japanese fighters tended to be called "Zeros" in World War II.
Yet the British in Malasia, with pilots that had experianced the Battle of Britain and flying Hawker Huricanes, were literally cut to shreds by Zero pilots.
The initial British pilots in Malaya had no BoB experience whatsoever; they were the worst trained pilots in the RAF.
Fighter tactics were completely different in the Pacific than the ETO. The Brits were used to dogfighting ME-109s, but doing so against Zeros was suicide. The Brits did not adjust their tactics to the situation.