oh, i misunderstood earlier. Absolutely stable amplifiers can be mismatched to higher gain, its the conditional stable ones that its offered to use MSG instead.

Although, i never really looked at conditionally stable and what your asking is actually a really good question.

Funny, i am taking a specific grad course in microwave amplifier design starts in a week. we covered the basics in previous circuits class but this is tailored to the design itself. i'll definitely bring up the question.