I remember reading an article that was following around an SAE class building "the perfect hot-street engine"... it was an Oldsmobile block with 108% VE... over a range of ~300 rpms I believe. the VE chart showed VE at or above 100 for over 1500rpms.

(Just wish I could recall the article better. Car Craft Mag maybe? Probably in 2000 or later...)

The best thing I got out of the article is that exhaust tuning affected VE less than intake design did. How much I can't tell... not my area, although the article was pretty cool.