If you review the history of the CT from the early days when it was just a proposal until now the disinterested observer sees a few constants.
For example, in the pre-CT days a very small but vocal crowd continually tried to convince anyone who would read the board that what the vast majority of players REALLY wanted was a more "realistic" arena with historical matchups. The proposal was that we all hungered for no dar, no icons, no tracers, no this, no that, no the other thing and a "historically correct" planeset that rotated to allow various matchups.
Well, HT finally gave those folks enough rope to hang themselves. They got the CT as their very own sandbox, within the capabilities of the game program. There were things they wanted to do that the programming just didn't allow.
For the most part, the early proponents of the CT experience are long gone.
The experiment, after enjoying an initial burst of participation, faded down to a low level. Recently, it has about hit rock bottom. I don't know how long it can really be considered a viable option when prime time play shows single digit participation.
A realist would examine the history of the CT, the various "schemes" that were tried to elicit greater participation and come to the conclusion that what the CT proponents were trying to sell simply wasn't wanted by the majority of the AH players.
To be specific, the vast majority of players did not care for no dar, no icon setups. Even the move to "reduced MA icons" was a failure in attracting more players. The diehards refuse to accept the fact that the limitations of a monitor are excessive in comparison to real life SA. The great majority of players realize that and accept the modifications that ameliorate that situation.
As for the "historical matchups" it was found early on that this simply couldn't work. On the one hand, there were several theaters/periods of the war where one side or the other had a clearly superior airplane. Setups that are "true" to that history invite one side to clobber the snot out of the other in an arena format and generally lead to one side, the clobberees being rather unpopulated. Additionally, the AH planeset in the early days was to thin to really support such a "historical" setup and thus ridiculous substitutions were made, such as putting a Peggy in place of a Betty in an otherwise early war setup. I'm not sure the planeset could really support this idea now; I know it didn't in the early days.
So, I don't think there's any hope for the CT. Sorry for being blunt, but the only real option is to make it as close to the MA as possible but with historical opponents. I really don't think that would work either.
Its probably best left as it is. A very small club for the few willing to overlook (or relish) what the rest of the folks consider unreasonable limitations.
Just .02 from a disinterested observer.
