Great looking grub RG!...Keep that up and I WILL look up your address and surprise you around dinner time.... 
Just on thought about KFC...I think they use pressure fryers - which speed up the cook time - but would also drive the flavors deeper into eh meat.....
I would LOVE to have had a pressure fryer for this test but I am fairly certain that they (the media folks) didn't use one. As a matter of fact, I even followed their suggestion of cooking at 350° so as not to overbrown and intensify the herbs, like they did "Turns out the frying oil was too hot, causing the breading to brown too much, which overpowered the taste of the herbs and spices. For the next couple batches, Schumacher tried double dipping into the spice and flour mixture. Too much coating, tasters decided. With the oil temperature just right at 350 degrees, the chicken soaked in buttermilk and coated just once in the breading mixture, we had our final tasting. How was it? Well, really good. In fact, tasters agreed the test kitchen fried chicken was even better than the Colonel's."
I do think that the herbs were too overpowering but I cooked at 350° and at first even had it at 335° so I am not sure what went wrong there. Maybe another test is in order. I did buy lots of chicken tenders, lol. I have 2 more packs
And... was you basil fresh or dried> What kind of basil. There are a number of varieties - and just like with oregano - the flavor and intensity of flavor varies a lot between the cultivars.
From the article "We bought all new herbs and spices — common grocery store brands — for the testing. We used all-purpose flour and standard table salt"
So that's what I used, standard in a plastic jar spices. So, to answer your question - cheapo dried spices like they used! I can't picture Colonel Sanders using fresh basil although the image of that makes me grin
