I think it's more the wording. I for one wouldn't be impressed if 40 gv's took a field. Actually I'd be more impressed if they didn't take the field. Imagine, it takes 40 guys now attacking at once to take a field...thats probably close to 1/2 the size of the country population.
You won't see large fighter sweeps, because by and large, mission makers see that as a waste. Why fly a fighter sweep, when you can gather a whole bunch of guys and attack a field where there will be no one there.
Personally I would like to AH have some form of system that would at least allow for some form of gameplay to be played out during the huge missions. If you are rolling 30-40 of anything into a field at once, the team getting pounded on really shouldn't/and doesn't have any chance or hope of defending against that....unless the horde is just terrible at everything. If AH is to be a combat game, and yet the system which governs the ideals of the game allows the opposite quite frequently, I think it may be time to revisit the mechanisms. I don't see any meaningfull combat when the horde starts pounding bases. It is on all teams, where the horde travels to where the other horde is not.
Here we have a combat game. A game developed around the idea the players will be fighting head to head against other players. In the last few times I've read the BB, the boasting has been about not fighting players at all, but swarming bases. There are no good stories, no tests of skill, no test of strategy. Just get a huge force, find empty fields, kill the buildings, drop troops. I guess you get some pvp in there while swarming the 3-4 guys who upped, mabye kill the manned ack, vulch runway and camp vh and you've been in serious combat.
Honestly I think the system discourages people from fighting against the horde. There is little time to gather defense, while the mission planners have plenty of time to assemble a force. I would imagine many people, especially newer subcribers, simply don't want to get shot to heck by bad odds, and join the other attack to the enemy's lightly/undefended field. It just domino's.
So, touting about hording a base and it's impressiveness, and how great the hording team, makes little sense to me. Saying it was fun, is something else. Though I'd find it boring, I guess you could enjoy it to an extent. However, I don't see reason why it would be impressive, skillfull, or surprising that 30-40 guys would be able to take a base.