honestly what does it matter if you loose a little top end? how often are you going to go over 180kmh??
having a high top speed is a wank figgure, its how fast you get there.

you wnt be able to get to top speed even with 4.1s .
with my 3.46s third gets to about 180 or so. im preety sure i will never see the top of 4th. even tho my car is now restricted to 280 kp/h. lol

Im a bit confused as to why you chose that analogy. It doesnt quite work and the big stick would have more power as required by its larger mass to overcome its inertia :-/

Think about bicycle gears. On a 10 speed you have 2 gears at the front and 5 at the rear. Imagine the rear is your gearbox and the front cogs are your diff. You change rear cogs all the time for normal riding. But if you change your front cog, from big to small (like 3.45 to 3.9) every gear is easier to pedal in. But what you find is that at higher speeds you are pedalling faster to maintain the same speed.

As with all car things its swings and round-abouts. You could go all out and get 4.11 diff gears and you'll rocket off the line, but in a manual t5 you would be doing approx 2700RPM to maintain 100KMS. Its a bit better in an auto but I dont know the numbers for them.