I got majorly downvoted for saying it, it's one of those things people don't like to accept, it's amazing the excuses I've heard and how angry people have got with me for saying it.

As you say, unless you've experienced it for yourself it's hard (but not impossible) to get quite how extreme it is.

I've heard plenty enough from women talking directly about it, from basically all fiction ('tall, dark, handsome' in that order, no romance novel has a short guy, etc.), the fact that height rockets up when nutrition improves - sexual selection likely to be a big factor on that too.

It's nuanced and it's all relative to the average height of the dating population you're in but a few inches can be the difference between some attention and absolutely none.