+ - is useful when you see a plane reversing - you can tell if he is turning towards you or away. Was useful in the CT last night where we were having some terrific 109 vs. P51/P38 dogfights with lots of vertical manoeuvers. You could also tell right away with a sideways glance when that distant 109 was heading in to the fight or going home.
The whole point of moving away from the AHI icon system is that you are now forced to do a little range estimation on your own when deciding on lead, when to open fire, etc. That's why people take such pains to make range estimating gunsights to help give a rough idea of when the target is ~250 yards out front. The addition of the +/- symbol was suggested and discussed at length in this bulletin board, and HTC has actually implemented what was a popular suggestion. It is a compromise between having your ranges spoon-fed to you, and the less informative icons present in the first versions of AHII which caused consternation to some. PLUS - having NME icons under their plane makes low 6 sneakups more possible, and nap-of-the-earth escapades more possible.
Fighter pilots spent much of their ground time studying range and angle-off charts of enemy aircraft during WWII. Only modern radar based gunsights give ranging values, and only through the HUD.
We can complain that our display systems are too crude to emulate real life, but we also have a luxury which the WWII RL pilots didn't have: that of being able to engage in an infinite number of live-fire exercises, and thus hone our estimation skills with the systems we do have.
I'm running a low end system with a 17" screen, but I would prefer NO range icons at all - personally, for me or my opponents. I say the new system is a good all-round compromise and say 'THANKS' to HTC for actually responding to our suggestions.
