No offense Shuffler but...what exactly is the improvement if someone is fighting your fight? There isn't one person in this game that hasn't lost a dogfight even using all of his "skillz" and some uber ride. If 2 Spixteens want to mix it up that's great but it's rarely that kind of situation...so the person who feels as if he is at some sort of disadvantage due to either his knowledge and ability in executing ACM or the plane he chose to fly...should fight on whatever terms he feels are appropriate, not yours. If you want to force your fight on him, there are ways other than calling implying he has a lack of skill just because he doesn't want to fight on your terms.
The key to the whole thing in my mind is we have unlimited do-overs. The only way you learn the limits of your ability and the bird you fly, is to push it, not run from it. That's all Shuff is saying. Most 51D drivers limit what they do. But there are a few that have learned to push it to the edge and they can knife fight with just about anyone. Same goes for the Jug drivers.
Because there is absolutely no risk to engaging in a fight, the reward is testing you ability.
If you limit yourself because you want to 'live', so be it. But don't expect folks to be impressed when it proves nothing in terms of ability.
If it were a one life game, then I could see it. In Scenarios I'll fly it differently because you do get limited lives. To me the fun of the MA is putting myself into situations that make me work for it. OK so I die often. But I think I can move my old 38G pretty well now against most folks in the game.
The artificial rewards in the game like points, rank, landed kills messages etc, promote the idea of 'living' and for many folks is how they rate their cartoon pilot skills. That's fine if that's how they want to do it. I'd rather spend my limited AH time mixing it up and testing my cartoon pilot skills, or lack therof, by fighting, regardless of the odds.