(A+ for your interpretation of what I meant by a “fingerprint”.)
Assuming that is indeed what they meant, it’s obviously wrong. That’s true even if you only consider durations that predominantly aerobically fueled.
Let’s assume they didn’t. I’ll take the hit for this one 
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True, but we argue when we need to rest and can’t ride our bike more.
So…
I think people would get more benefit from using the time they spend arguing about minutiae in training by resting and sleeping more. 
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To be fair, alot of us probably scoll through the forum and get into arguments during work hours. My boss wouldn’t approve of me taking a nap instead 
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Would he notice?
There is that too, but what if you just got on your bike, that would be even harder to disguise 
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Samesies.
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we have a winner 
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I didn’t read all the replies, but are you fueling enough?
From what I can tell it is still the best single universal metric, especially for amateurs. If you go from 2.7 W/kg to 3.4 W/kg (or an equivalent improvement in absolute terms), it virtually guarantees that you have seen significant improvements in all aspects of performance.
If you reach the top end of the curve, you will likely need additional metrics. But then you likely need to focus on a metric that is specific to you, to the discipline you want to maximize performance in and to your style of riding. TTE could be a great metric to focus on for a triathlete, but likely less relevant for a crit racer. Or you might want to practice going hard after 3, 4 hours of Z2. Picking the right metric is crucial here. But as far as I can tell, there is nothing as universal and simple as FTP.
In my experience, HR is data that is heavily context-dependent. Just think of a workout where you do some time at Z2, then over-unders and then another block of Z2. My heart rate in the second block is always quite a bit higher (~10 bpm is not unusual) than in the first or pure Z2 workouts. I use heart rate recovery as an indicator of how fit I am or how hard a workout is. If recovery is <= 90 seconds, the workout is easy and/or I am very fit. But add a bit of stress (e. g. bad sleep because one of the kids crawled into bed and spent 4 hours kicking me periodically) and the heart rate will rise.
What has worked for me is to use power as primary data, and combine that with heart rate and RPE. If two out of three indicators are 
, I think about my options.
For outdoor rides when I have the time to, that’s what I do. Outdoor Z2 rides at the lower part of Z2 (think IF = 0.60~0.65) are super relaxing. I pace by heart rate as I find that easier outdoors than to pace by power, especially if it very windy. Indoors I am more time constrained — or rather, I usually ride indoors when I am time constrained. Then I usually go higher in terms of IF.
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I struggled to find this metric(s) when my FTP started to plateau a few years back. It was often met with “FTP is not dead” (I wasn’t saying it was!), “FTP is the single biggest determinant…” (yeah, I know, I can parrot Coggan, too) blah, blah…very frustrating.
Stamina isn’t really practical/usable (how do you feed the model?), and I wasn’t really interested in my already crappy sprint after 3000 kJ versus when fresh…news flash, it is still crappy and I don’t need a sprint anyway. 
I guess TTE, but I had already gotten to 50-55 mins.
And yet, the following year I had a big jump in FTP that:
a) came after a very long stretch of training (~ 11 months)
b) didn’t involved very much high intensity (what little I did was unstructured)
c) was not precipitated by any sub-threshold indicator of improvement
d) the subjective feeling that I was stronger for longer, so I just went on faith (and the fact that I was enjoying the training)
I looked at when HR drift occurred, basic lactate curve stuff, HRV…just chasing. I still don’t really know what I could have tracked during that period to mark improvement.
Of course, afterwards I had this little chart that showed lower HR at same power across the curve, but that wasn’t happening every few weeks. I made that in intervals.icu after I already knew the answer to the question (nice way to flex on TR forums, I guess…but who cares)
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What you wrote strongly resonates with me. I was very much looking into additional performance metrics about a year or two ago. Now I am an amateur, but I got helpful input from the likes of @kurt.braeckel and my take-away from what they shared led me to the same conclusion that you came to.
Apart from absolute and specific FTP, the only other universal metric I have came across is consistence (when adhering to a training plan). Of course, this isn’t a performance metric, at least not directly, but more of a metric of how well your training is going.
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Consistency, as a metric is baseline training load in kJ work/week.
CTL is better.
ETA: Before somebody complains that TSS overweights duration and underweight intensity, I suggest studying slides 31-35 of this presentation:
I looked at slides 31-35 … what are they supposed to be demonstrating? It looks like a training plan. I’m not sure what about TSS, specifically, was supposed illustrated in there.
Sometime I need to be spoon fed lol 
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Collectively, those slides illustrate that despite the significant changes in volume and intensity over the course of the season, CTL doesn’t vary an awful lot. If TSS markedly overweighted duration and underweighted intensity, CTL should have decreased significantly as volume decreased and intensity increased during the latter ~third of the season. However, it did not.
Back to my original claim: CTL is better than total work because it recognizes that 1) intensity matters and 2) the workouts you’ve done most recently matter more than the ones you did some time ago (something that simply looking at TSS per week does not).
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kJ/week is more a measure of intensity and volume than consistency.
I think about consistency as to whether I finished workouts in my training plan without cutting them short or having replaced them with an easier workout.
To me, consistency is more about knowing whether I manage life stress well and/or are sick. The latter is, not surprisingly, the biggest factor when falling off the wagon.
I’ve got no arguments against ctl, and know my ramp rates depending on all the work being done. Also know I’ve seen long-term aerobic development with relatively low ctl (upper 50s and low 60s). For grocery shopping I think in terms of kJ work, and slightly prefer kJ when fitness drops after a break and I’m ramping back over a week or two or three.
FYPFY.
(Total work says nothing about intensity.)
Not sure what the acronym stands for.
Clearly, total energy expenditure by itself says nothing about intensity or volume. But together with time, it seems an equally good/bad measure of both as TSS and time, no?
In any case, I wouldn’t call either a measure of consistency. (Clearly, an unplanned drop in TSS/energy and time on the bike indicates your training has gone off the rails.)
FYPFY = fixed your post for you.
Work and time together tells you something about intensity (average power), but not work alone. Even then, however, there are lots of different ways of achieving the same average power, yet some are more stressful than others. CTL at least attempts to account for this fact in a cogent manner.
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