Happy to answer questions if you have them. Lots of goods in there.
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Re: the all-out discussion. This is a teaching point for coaches and a learning one for athletes. You absolutely CAN go all-out for any given duration, it’s just pacing. You cannot explosively SPRINT for any duration, as your PCr is going to run out very quickly. Eventually your sugar runs out as well, but at that point you’re already below your absolute maximum (sprint) effort anyway. This is why your power curve is shaped the way it is.
Many people hit the 90s point and are done: legs seize up, etc. The 2-min “all out” effort is the hardest thing there is to do in endurance sports, in my opinion, because you’re well beyond glycogen’s ability to carry you, and you’re now trying to maintain the same effort with lower ATP production primarily from your slower responding aerobic energy system. But you know you’ve nailed it when power is just dying off at about 1:50… Most people will go all out for 90s, hit that sugar wall, and cave. The key is just a shade below that so you can push to 2:00… it’s a paced effort (no one will ever convince me there’s a harder race than the 800m in track… said by a former 800m racer, lol).
You can go “all-out” for 6 hours, but the criteria is probably a bit different because ultimately if you fuel well, you probably could go another minute longer… but the point is most people aren’t going all out for 6 hours. Most people are going pretty hard and then using their reserve at the end of it. 10 min later, they could go out and ride more.
Anyway, all that to say you absolutely can go “all out” for any given length of time… it’s just a max effort at that level. Maybe that’s 600W for 1 min, maybe that’s 400W for 5 min, maybe it’s 1200W for 10s. All of those are still “all-out” efforts, even though they call on different energy systems at various times.
What I’m after in VO2max work is “max repeatable”. I want power to decline over the course of the interval AND over the course of the workout. In other words, you end every interval feeling like you gave almost everything you have, but generally knowing you can do it again in 5-10 min.
I do not expect people to set a 5min power PR in the first interval of a 4x5 workout. If they do… they’re probably gonna have a bad time. Hopefully that makes sense.
As @BCM said, I differentiate max aerobic power work vs. VO2max work. They are two distinct training modes in my opinion. In one case (MAP) I am training the most POWER you can do for a given duration. In the other, I want the most power you can do with certain caveats focused on specific physiological adaptations (stroke volume). They obviously overlap in some ways, but there is a distinction there, at least to me.
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Pah! 
A half-mile is much harder!!
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‘Merica.
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Following up on my own post on this to highlight why a) it’s important to have general vs specific wattage targets and b) it’s important to do these without ERG. This was done almost a month ago
and this was done yesterday
the things I notice a) average across all intervals is 10w higher b) less drop-off in power later into workout in 2nd vs the first and c) higher 4min power. By doing somewhat paced maximal efforts and keep the ERG mode off, I can actually push my limits and see improvement.
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You missed d) I did an extra interval 
What a rewarding thing to see after only 1 month. Nice.