I have a idea, not sure if its new.
Reading another post, where people suggest that we get polished planes.
How about you can have every fighter polished with paying some extra perk points, say 1 or 2?
The perk point would be lost, therefor your fighter would be a tad faster, like 5mph as if it were polished with a lot of work.
This way i could spend my perk points, and it would add some diversion to the arena to not konw if the enemy plane is a faster or slower variant.