I understood their point perfectly well and agreed that there may be a point in time where autonomous aircraft replace manned combat aircraft. My point was that such an occurrence wouldn't lead to a significant reduction in aircraft size or cost.

They absolutely will just die from too many G. You're just replacing a family at home mourning the loss of a pilot to the accountants throwing themselves out of windows because these damned airframes keep ripping themselves apart or otherwise incurring excessive maintenance costs because the maneuvers they engage in are pushing the airframe itself to it's material limits. Believe it or not, the art of engineering is striking the right balance to minimize the overall cost of the process, and trying to keep from just stunting the cost to a different coffer.