Sol,
I still need to brush up on some of my old Lydiard books, but like you said, even though it may have been explicitly expressed by Lydiard, from what I've read in Snell and Halberg's books, it's not like they did 3...4...5 years of nothing but base mileage before they started racing. I understand that not everyone agrees with everything Lydiard has to say, but under the most basic principles of periodization, I don't think it's good to spend 24...36...48...60 straight, consecutive MONTHS training the same system (endurance) without making a switch to either hills (strength) or track work (speed), using examples from the Lydiard system. You're right in that Lydiard suggests a 5K and sometimes a 10K time trial during the week and that definitely works the VO2 system. But although Lydiard condemned the American collegiate (even high school system) for trying to get in three peaks a year, I doubt, and this is my opinion, I doubt you'd hear Lydiard say to aim for a peak only after 3, 4 or 5 years of nothing but his aerobic marathon training. Snell and Halberg were racing the SAME year they began training under Lydiard.