why do we need the best of the best?? the idea is to pick a year and battle it out. some years, certain planes werent available. ok fine, so you deal with what you get. i think the problem is that people want the dweeby planes because they cant fly anything else. i dont think it has anything to do with favorite, they just dont know how and aren't willing to learn. when our group flew, we took whatever was given to us and made it work. we actually won with planes no one wanted to fly.
as for the icon range, just another excuse why things dont work. everyone wants it easy. well in the real battles, if you didnt have good eyes, you died. ok so turn or darbar and radar up and let the guys that need icons find their fights, but i like 3k icon range personally.
at the end of the day, its still just a game, change it up, make it different, change the rules, but its still a game. no sure why people get emotionally invested in it. its great fun but again just a game. you'd probably get more people in there if you made it just like the MA's but wheres the challenge to that? i personally like the challenge and like to think that everyone that plays in there is a better class of player and not just the run of the mill MA player. just my 3 cents.