If the benchmark for unbalancing well and truly is 20% of sorties, then obviously it does not.
Forget about the 20% thing.
By what benchmark of 'balance' would you say the Spit16 is
unbalanced? Look at the stats and tell me how the Spit16 is unbalancing the arena.
But the fact remains that the F4U-1C and SpitXIV are not clearly superior to the SpitXVI, nor do they have any truly unique advantages over the rest of the set. (The 262s firepower and speed beyond the reach of all prop fighters, the Tempest's clear superiority in both speed AND acceleration to everything prop driven, the F4U's combination of near-the-top speed with near-the-top maneuverability.)
I wouldn't call that fact, far from it in fact. The F4UC has qualities such as speed, guns, ammo quantity, turn radius with full flaps, and endurance that would make it superior to the Spit16. You do realize the F4UC out turns the Spit16 with full flaps engaged, turn fight on the deck? As for the Spit14, don't know enough about it to comment.
Huh...a glance at the Ta-152 performance stats would've told anyone that it is not clearly superior to the P-51D, 109 K, D9, or other rides at reasonable MA alts, so I don't really understand why it was perked in the first place.
HTC looked at the whole picture, including its performance stats in the strato, and made a decision to perk it.
Arena stats have shown it didn't need to be perked so they unperked it. Show us
arena stats that show the Spit16 needs to be perked!
And yet, now it seems to have the highest k/d of all non-perked planes...are we going to perk it again because of that? Or, are we going to instead look at its lack of popularity and raise its ENY to 35? Or are we going to do something *reasonable* and look at its performance?
You are are trying to separate two different important factors in determining perk status. K/D & Popularity. You have to look at the two together, not separately. If only m00t and I flew the 152 and no one else was allowed for the entire tour, it would have some inflated stats. But its popularity would be astronomically low. You have to take the two together. If a plane has an incredibly solid K/D to go along with high popularity, then you can make a case for perkage. The spit16 has high popularity, but not the K/D ratios that I would call unbalancing by any stretch of the imagination.