Thank you for sharing!
I have to call Arena's BS on point 2 though.
Against Portugal, we started Frankie Hejduk, Tony Sanneh, and Jeff Agoos. Greg Berhalter later filled in for Agoos and Carlos Llamosa also got some run in later games. Our defense pool is much better now than 2002. There were times in that tournament that both Claudio Reyna and Pablo Mastroeni dropped back into the defensive line and we played 6 straight across the back to cover for the lack of defensive talent. You also have to look at guys like Joe Max Moore, Eddie Lewis, and Josh Wolfe and think that Altidore, Wood, Dempsey and obviously Pulisic would have taken a bit of their time or forced a lineup change that moved them to the end of the bench.
What the 2002 team had was composition in the center of midfield, Mastroeni playing the role of destroyer perfectly, two surprise stars, organization defensively that we haven't seen since, and a little bit of luck (which I attribute to Clint Mathis' mohawk). They didn't have decisively more talent except for maybe Eddie Pope in his prime, Friedel between the pipes, and the Reyna/JOB midfield pairing.