When it comes to actual skinning, it's hard to balance out between the detail and overall looks of it.
Because, what it looks in the Photoshop, sometimes looks totally different when it's actually wrapped around.
When I was working with Egon Meyer's Fw190A-5, I tried some very detailed handling, placing all rivets, all panel lines as exactly it is supposed to be. Placing all kinds of text and data and weathering. But the end result I got, was the more detail put into, the more "garbled" it looked when actually applied to the aircraft.
Basically, I find that weathering is all about balance - the less it is the better the airplane actually looks, and easier it is to do. But without it, no matter how it looks good, the plane looks somewhat incomplete. The heavier it gets, the uglier the plane becomes.
Personally, I've set my weathering 'agenda' to a principle of "absolute necessity" - the characteristic wear and tears will be portrayed(such as the wingroot area, characteristic of almost all WW2 planes..), but a lot of what we are tempted to portray, inevitably has to be left out.
That's my view on this.
