If you’re paying $42.14 per dollar of earnings there is a likelihood that more often than not you’re overpaying.
If you can’t pass simple mechanical litmus tests you’d better be damn sure, and frankly there just aren’t many exceptional companies where I feel damn sure about them.
You can't just do a simplistic extrapolation of the last couple years in a spreadsheet.
Google couldn't pass your "simple mechanical litmus tests" when it went public. Apple couldn't pass it in the late 90s. Amazon couldn't pass it most of it's life. IBM could for a good number of years (just look at the numbers when Buffett was buying it...) Most of the banks could in 2005/6/7.
You seem to think that I use these mechanical estimates as the primary method for purchase, but they are not.
I'm not sure what your point is about IPOs: they're historically a terrible time to invest, which is common knowledge.
And actually all of the companies you have mentioned have easily passed such litmus tests over their life time at different times. Sometimes they're overbought, some times they're oversold. If you buy when they're overbought, you'll end up with a lower IRR than if you hadn't.
I didn't make a point about IPOs. I made a point about companies where real insight was required, both to see good investments and not make bad ones. Simple rules like "IPOs are bad", "dont pay x times earnings" etc, they haven't worked in years.
If it's all as simple as you say - really - just go start a hedge fund. You can start an LLC in a day, throw some money into a brokerage account and be up and running. There are still plenty of LPs who will invest in a simple long only fund, even with vol, as long as the performance is good.