I would guess that his logic is along the lines of
it's the fuel in the engine that is providing the power, and crushing air on the compression stroke is just acting like a spring and giving the compression back on the power stroke, plus what you get from the petrol; if the air is initially hotter, it is harder to compress but gives more power back on the power stroke, the two roughly cancelling out.
Temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy per molecule. What he seems to be saying is put a bit more heat in and you get the same bit more out, the fuel providing a heat difference ideally between compression and power strokes, and that difference being what really runs the engine.
It seems to be a very simple view of things, as a warmer engine should cause more heat to be conducted away through the cylinder walls. However, with warmer (less dense) air, you couldn't burn as much fuel and so there would be a smaller quantity of the hotter gases actually in contact with the cylinder walls.
Balancing conflicting factors like this can be tricky and call for a rule of thumb, eg what you gain on the swings, you loose on the rounabouts. I'd guess that his rule of thumb is what he has observed in practice and grossly rounded.
thanks I am still miffed. if you decrease IATs shouldn't that mean more potential for power, which means more heat, which also means high EGTs?
more heat, which also means high EGTs ....
No, let's say heat is total energy and say temperature is (average kinetic) energy per molecule. Just because you have more heat because you have more molecules doesn't mean that any particular molecules are moving faster.