Since death has no immediate impact, and their initial skill levels are much too limited to understand more profound tactics, the first immediate source of "fun" to a newbie is to start shooting at something - whether they survive through the HO or not.
HO is a viable tactic, but only when the terms are right. In most cases, it's a dangerous and risky business - unless someone is pretty much sure of absolute advantage in forward firepower and plane durability, I wouldn't think a real life pilot in a real life combat situation would ever enjoy a Head-on encounter.
But ofcourse, newbies don't care about that. They wouldn't be newbies if they did care about something like that.
Thus, when you evaded his attack, and denied him the shooting chance, and suckered him into a classic rope, his immediate response is "this is no fun".
Normally, when someone feels his maneuver/tactic resulted in a disaster, and it is obviously not working as expected, he would try something else.
However, when newbies continue to do that stuff, it can only mean that their typical unimpressive first merge, is working in other cases. That's why they keep doing that stuff.
The odds are, average pilots rarely meet superior pilots. Most usually average pilots fight with other average pilots. And in those cases, the gung-ho HO, works for them. They're in the same planes(usually Spits, La-7s, or N1K2), fighting at same altitudes, fighting with same attitude and same low skill level.
And in those sort of fights, usually, the guy who turns and points their guns onto the opponent first, wins. Especially, if their plane has something like .50s or Hispanos mounted, who wouldn't want to try a HO?
