Gentlemen, if you're going to pick on a poor, dead writer who isn't around to defend himself, it's always a good idea to go to the source. (Personally, I'm planning on coming back from the dead if I hear someone misquoting something I wrote!) If you read Brister's chapter "The Case for the Small Gauge", he does indeed talk about the 28's short shot string . . . but mostly in comparison to the 3" .410's very long shot string. He does say that the 28 gauge is somewhat of an exception in that it "simply kills better than it is supposed to". But he does present some evidence for that claim, in terms of skeet averages at that time--which ran only 1% different for Class B shooters, from the 20 to the 28. But he doesn't really credit any magical properties to the 28, pointing out that even in shoots like a "quail walk", where one might think a smallbore would not be a disadvantage, he--and other shooters who won or placed--did so with 12's.
His bottom line on the 28ga: "Apparently the 28 standard load and the 12-gauge pigeon load are both balanced loads in terms of the length and weight of shot column relative to bore diameter and other factors." No claims about a "square load".
If you read Brister objectively, you'll find that he was really surprised--having done pretty well himself, shooting doves and quail with a .410--that 28 gauge patterns on both still and moving pattern boards were that much better.
