I'm also not convinced about increasing VO2Max as an endurance athlete... It used to be the single measure people looked at, but has increasingly become less important, as it is very specific, very hard to improve (there is a lot of genetics going on here), and will not necessarily improve race results. As always, it is but one variable in a long list of variables.
Just like power numbers on the bike mean nothing without context, VO2Max means nothing without context.
The standard test for it is also very much not applicable to real world performance. As a part of the standard test protocol you don't know either required effort nor duration, which makes it impossible to pace, and proper pacing is extremely important for endurance athletes.
A better measure might be your vVO2Max, which is your velocity at VO2Max effort and includes economy/efficiency as well as pure VO2Max (basically to improve race times you can improve either one or both)
As a runner, there are a lot of other factors that you would be better off improving (and this becomes more valid the longer your distance is), chiefly among which is efficiency (that holds true for all endurance sports), and endurance at subthreshold paces (aerobic training a la Maffetone).
VO2Max being very hard to improve (assuming you have reached a certain level of fitness and maturity as an athlete, beginners can improve anything easily) it is a lot more injury prone to do so, and running is very injury prone already.
Nothing wrong with running a few weeks of specific VO2Max training once or twice a year, but on the long term you will always be better off to improve submaximal endurance and efficiency (which basically gives you speed for free).
The swings portion in S&S being largely a form of A+A training is a lot more applicable to real world endurance than pure VO2Max training, in my experience at least, and it seems to be confirmed by results that people get