My mistake. My truck has the huge 97+ round filter. Didn't hit me that we where talking about those stupid flat filters. I would imagine that compared to the flat filters the cone style filters would make a huge difference over stock, but compared to to the 97+ airbox with that huge filter, those cone ones are almost half the size of the stocker.
If you ask me, its really all about the size of the filter. The bigger the filter, the more area there is that can be used to draw air in and clean it. The way I like to explain it to people is if your engine is drawing in 300cfm though a filter that has a suface area of 150 cubic feet, your drawing in and filtering out 2cfm in a 1 cubic foot area. Now, if you purchase one of these aftermarket filters, USUALLY they come as these smaller "cone style" ones that I believe you are describing. These cone ones are literally half the size(again 97+ airbox) of the stock filter. So now, you have a filter that has a surface area of 75 cubic feet. Despite increased flow "ratings", the engine is still calling for 300cfm or air. Now, your filter has to draw in and filter 4cfm of air per 1 cubic foot. Get where I'm coming from?
After the axle swap I plan on doing a full writeup and really show people how an air cleaner system should be setup based on a number of designs I have seem from tractors, semi's and generally other machines that draw large volumes of air and still require good filtration. Essentially, if you really want a good air cleaner system, it needs to be wide open with pronounced and free flowing bends in them to ensure the best flow inside the tube, and a rather oversized filter with high filtration capabillities to filter out the crap that shouldn't be entering the engine in the first place. Thats my standpoint on the subject.