Wing-mounted armament is a tradeoff in fighter design. In propeller fighters, nose-mounted armament requires either a synchronizer system to avoid shooting the propeller as one fires through the propeller disc or an engine layout amenable to a hub-mounted gun. With wing guns, however, the guns don't need to be synchronized, so the design of the nose is simplified.

So let's look at the tradeoffs. For centrally-mounted guns, the benefits include:

• Guns don't need to be zeroed to a convergence distance so they have similar effect over a much wider range
• Weight is placed closer to center of mass, keeping the roll moment lower and allowing for faster rolls

While the cons mainly consist of

• Complicating design of the nose, as you now have to fit synchronizer gears, guns, ammunition, and any system for a hub-mounted gun. Particularly complicated cases include the P-39, where the engine had to be relocated behind the cockpit to make space for the 37mm cannon in the nose.
• Limited space for guns and ammunition - something that often led to mixed arrangements of nose and wing guns as extra firepower either couldn't fit in the nose (see the wing gun arrangements on later P-39 models) or wasn't something that could fit in the nose in the first place (see designs like the Mitsubishi A6M Zero)

For wing-mounted guns, your benefits are pretty much just avoiding the cons listed above while taking on the following issues:

• Guns require a convergence zone to maximize effectiveness, whereas outside that range their effectiveness drops off
• Wing mounted guns increase the moment of inertia, making rolls slower

Looking at interwar aircraft design, the trend you'll notice is that designers generally tried to focus armament in the nose during the period where standard armaments consisted of two rifle caliber (.30 caliber, 8mm, 7.62mm) machineguns, and wing-mounted guns started to become a thing once armament demands increased to the point where it wasn't practical to cram everything in the nose. An important thing to note that points to the inherent superiority of concentrating guns in the nose is looking at aircraft that didn't have an engine in the nose for whatever reason. Heavy fighters like the Bf-110 and P-38 all had their armament concentrated in the nose, and pretty much ever experimental pusher-propeller fighter (XP-55, XP-56, J7W, Saab 21) would have a similar arrangement.

Wartime pilots may have expressed preferences one way or the other, but fighter pilot preferences often don't line up with more practical realities, and often just reflect what the pilots are used to rather than what may be "best." For example, you point to stories of pilots appreciating the wider field of fire afforded by wing-mounted guns. However, the Soviets operating Lend-Lease aircraft often had the opposite experience - with the VVS operating primarily fighters with nose-mounted armament, pilots tended to take issue with the wing-mounted armament of aircraft like the P-40, Spitfire, or P-47. Meanwhile, they always had great things to say about the P-39 - an aircraft often derided in American service - as its nose-mounted armament was familiar to pilots and the unusual center of gravity was something that pilots transitioning over from I-16s were more used to.

But back to the question - why did we move back to nose guns once jets came along? Well jets removed the propeller disc from the equation. Just like nose guns never left the equation when engines weren't in the way, they once again became an option once jets moved the engine placement. Unlike piston engines driving propellers, jets ended up in the back of the aircraft, freeing up plenty of space for armament in the nose. In addition, the significantly faster speeds that engagements were taking place at meant that liabilities considered acceptable previously - like the narrow effective range - were now asking too much.