But that still hasn't addressed whether stats can measure the effect of physicality.
You mentioned an alternative point to support the stats, and I think it's very valid. However, there's no stat that can tell me if the physicality of a Pronger has a positive effect on his teammates, in terms of opening up room for them or allowing them to play at ease.
Any stats attempting to do so are going to suffer from the fact that you can't separate Pronger's effectiveness of play from his physical play, nor can you separate his teammates's regular effectiveness of play from any increased effectiveness of play due to physicality.
I think that's an overlooked aspect of the game by the talking heads of the statisticians groups, and an overemphasized aspect of the game by the talking heads of the no-stats group. Usually, it's the quieter guys not causing a stir that put fair emphasis on all aspects.
You're asking for the wrong questions. There's no point in measuring physicality. It's like asking how much batters were intimidated when facing Randy Johnson. If the guy is afraid after getting pitched inside or simply facing RJ then he'd a less effective batter or RJ a more effective pitcher, period. If Pronger's physicality helps him being a more effective defender, then it will show in his stats.
Randy Johnson gave up less HR, had more strike outs, better DICE/DIPS, better Pitch FX and all you want. No one ever attemped measuring fear in the batter's eye.
Also, if you read the first article I mentionned, the author touches a bit on those subjects.
Moneyball applies more towards low-budget teams, it kind of defeats the purpose of great value when you sign guys for $20 million a season. The point is to use the advanced stats to find cheap players as the alternative. Guys like Beane are geniuses because they're great at searching the bargain bin by using advanced statistics and maximizing the asset. Boston just signs and trades for everybody in sight. That's not moneyball my friend.
The value a player brings to a team is relative to each market. The value of Manny Ramirez was not the same for Boston than it would have been to Oakland for example. Those are things that have been studied quite extensively. The value of the 90th win for a team like Boston is worth about 3 million IIRC. That's quite a bit. A player's performance will impact on team wins, which then in turn have an impact on attendance/tv ratings, which lead to various revenues. The revenues generated by Manny Ramirez in Boston were well beyond what they paid for him. Analytics will help you figuring out how much that is worth and put a number on value for each dollar invested. It's not a black or white thing where stats have value for low budget teams and don't for high budget teams.