Ok so here it goes.
Dont restart now, wretched machine!
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2006.tb00718.x/pdf
I recommend reading it but I'll point out a few things that are very relevant to this discussion
Remember its a white wine article. I know you want the broad strokes, Squatchy so i wont mention much detail in that regard, but always worth keeping it in mind.
1- Independantly from the pitched ammount the highest concentration of yeast is reached after 3-4 days (figure 2, that'd be the growth phase), and the ammount is around 10^8 cells/ml, with slightly more cells the higher the ammount pitched. Also the more yeast pitched, the faster the ferment (figure 1)
2- Squatchy- "I also wanted to say that my understanding is that it's once you move past the lag phase this is when logarithmic growth happens. And this is when you see most of the reproduction of biomass along with most of the flavor, fussells, (which half of the flavors we like are actually fussels) H2S and SO2 is made as well as the polysaccharides and phenols" You are mostly right. Im not checking this but i think polysaccharides are released also/mainly at the end in many cases (differs on the strain). Also you missed glycerol, which has been found to be mainly produced in the first day of fermentation (but also through the growth phase, altough most is early on that phase). Fusels are basically higher alcohols as you probably know. As with many other things (acetaldehyde, acetic acid, others), in low ammounts they give a desirable flavour but too much of them can give undesirable flavours.
3- Into esters and flavour compounds, the article has table II, very interesting. In it you can see that the highest pitch rates give the most flavour compounds overall (rate of 10^7 cells/ml, if you pitch 5 grams of yeast in 4l, close to 1 gal, you are pitching 6.25x10^6 cells/ml, according to the data from mangrove jack that 1 gram of yeast is 5x10^9 cells, altough we already discussed that ammount may be higher or even lower)
But its worth mentioning that it is in fact a lower rate that produces the most esters, 10^6 cells/ml, and that gives over double ammount of ester compounds than 10^7. Also that pitching rate (10^6 cells/ml) has the highest volatile acidity in the non-wild fermented category, and same goes for total acidity. I also recommend you gusy read the conclussions of the article that also has interesting info.
Squatchy- "So anyway: Would anyone care to comment on where you might think the the sweet spot stops and starts. As far as number of replications in the biggest part of the biomass in relation to the power band in the fermentation kinetics when the most flavor is produced in any given mead batch?"
So i tried to more or less answer this. Ferments go considerably faster the more you pitch (at least until 10^7 cells/ml which is 2 grams per liter of must or 8g/gal, over that ammount i have not seen any data but seems obvious to me that the more ammount pitched the faster it goes), and the same goes to total aromatic compounds, but not for esters (big difference here, sweet spot being at/close to 10^6 cells/ml or 0.5 grams of yeast per liter/2g per gal) and acidity. If the ammount of yeast goes from 10^7 cells/ml to 10^8, you got 3-4 replications, and if you start at 10^6 cells/ml you got 6-7 replications. I think the sweet spot is in that renge, depending on what you look for, and there is probably no point flavour or speed wise in pitching less than 2g/gal (10^6 cells/ml).
Obviously as you can guess that other factors, mainly temperature, influence all this. The study was conducted at 20ºC, but we go lower than that so that might mean longer growth phase and/or lower ammount of total yeast cells/ml in the end, different ammount of certain esters as we discussed in other thread...yadda yadda.
I hope you guys find this interesting. I might do some more research and analize those numbers one by one from the flavour compounds later on.
If someone has other info about the topic, go ahead. And sorry if all the numbers gave you a headache, heh. I tried to simplify a bit, but im not that good at it.