lazs,
I am not overly fond of the perk system either, and I wish that I could say that I know of a viable alternative. The best one that I have seen is a simple rolling planeset, however that system seems to send many people into hysterics.
You are distorting the effect od the 7 point perk. The F4U-1C still gets plenty of use, it had 10,392 kills last tour. I would hardly call that useless.