This game is awesome but it is the people who you fly and fight against / with that brings the best sense of being in an actual fight.  I know when I come up against some one like b4buster, wingzero, lute, paws (to name a few) my heart races, my shoulders tense.  I know I am in a fight.  Though this is not real combat and they are not shooting real bullets, it is the closest I have found to that.  I have done my best to get others interested, I have talked about the experience of that first air-to-air kill and the rush of knowing I beat a person, not a machine.  Freebies and the like would serve to increase the player base, but at what cost?  I want to see this game continue and to thrive but not at the expense of what we already have.  
Just my two cents.
WMTom