Don't worry Guppy - the answer is simple, and no it's not your imagination.
It's inertia. Or more exactly, the fact that the original inertia of what you remember is running out.
At one time, we payed 2.00 an hour to fly. Before that, some folks payed as much as 6.00 an hour. The result was a player-base made up of guys who were fascinated with the aircraft of the time period, and who envisioned themselves as the aces in them. It required a huge commitment to participate, and people (for all that people are always people) treated it like what it was to them - a huge investment of time, energy, and money into a hobby.
Note "hobby". To 97% or more of us, it wasn't a game. It was a hobby.
And so the "sim machine" chugged on, picking up speed and becoming what we remember it being, up until the Internet made connections cheaper and flat rate pricing changed the rules. First 30/month flat rate, and now 15. But for the longest time the status quo that was built up when it was costing us hundred(s) of dollars a month to participate continued to run on, of it's own inertia, and so the changes - the reaction to the change in rules that changed the demographics of the player base - has taken place gradually despite the immediacy of the change that caused it.
Eventually though, the machine ran down, and over time the game has attracted an increasing percentage of a completely different player - one who sees it as a challenging game.
I'm not criticizing, although it might seem so. Just pointing out what I see changing over time, and why. And why it's a fool's hope to wish for it to be more like it was - the conditions that conspired to make it what it was then are are now vanished, only memories.
<S>
