Very Interesting Post.
So relating it to my two sample PODs
For Xerox PARC -even though they were two generations ahead they did not own all the processes required, and IBM even though they were behind could have duplicated the hardware. Although this raises the question What if a computer giant like the old IBM was 5 years ahead of the competitors? They basically developed everything internally.
I don't think five years is enough. This is what I mean by "what is a generation?". A five-year lead, even in a field as quickly developing as computers, is something that other engineers will admire, but understand. Give Yahoo of 2005 the software to Google Chrome and they will be able to understand and duplicate it. But on the whole, a horizontally integrated corporation is better placed to keep its secrets. I never understood the modern hostility to horizontal integration anyway - it's really a luxury born of the illusion that a well-functioning, noncorrupt environment is the norm.
American-German Cold War - Since in this scenario Europe and America would have competing industrial economies, the processes required to make a Boeing 747 or a Mercedes S-class might be scattered among dozens of companies in their respective trade blocks. This would make producing an industrial knock-off hard, if the plane, car, computer, etc. really had a big technological lead.
Probably - this was part of the problem the Warsaw Pact had. they could get Western stuff (usually without too many problems, even), but duplicating it was often a challenge. Even if they managed to get into a factory to snoop out the production processes, they would only get a small part of the whole. Trying to duplicate something like a 747 would probably still be remotely feasible without too much of a technology lag. You need good metallurgy and reliable workers, but all the structural engineering work has been done for you. But a Dreamliner or A 380 requires hundreds of proprietary processes for glues, composite materials, electronics, software and lots more stuff I have no clue about. As long as both sides are technologically roughly equal, getting your hands on such an item is useful to give your engineers a chance to figure out how their people do things. But a significant technological lead will mean that they just can't do anything much with it. I heard from an East German programmer that Robotron (their computer company) was increasingly reluctant to look at Western technology in the late 80s because there was less and less they could use, and it demoralised their staff.