From my current understanding, the matching network will infact reduce any reflective power due to mismatching, logically then that "not-reflected-power" would lead to more power to the antenna and hence more power to the air?
Generally true i.e. whether it's matched due to physical length tuning or, matched due to an impedance matching network then, the result is the same with the following caveats: -
- An antenna that is a lot different in length compared to the physical optimum may have a very low radiation resistance and, that can make it trickier to match to.
- An antenna with a lower-than-ideal radiation resistance will have a loss-resistance that is much more significant i.e. greater losses have to be incurred and hence less power transferred to free-space.
- An antenna with a low radiation resistance will necessarily require a matching network that is high in Q-factor and, as a result, the usable bandwidth of the antenna will be significantly reduced.
A simple quarter-wave monopole might have a radiation resistance of 37 Ω but, it will also have a series loss of a couple of ohms and, when you reduce the antenna length, you disproportionately lower the radiation resistance and, quite soon, losses ramp up to near 50% or worse. There is nothing you can do about correcting these losses.