I love the way it is now, really love it.
As far as climbing goes, it is not an issue IMO, if you have a plane with that little fuel, (LA, Yak or just not a DT on a 109 or spit) you can use cruise settings, will get you up there aswell just not quite as fast. The higher you come the less fuel you consume.
A 109 can get to 30k in less then 10 minutes, 100% and DT. This will give you plenty of time to fight at that high altitude, specially if you have throttled down before the fight.