Humble,
I don't know what the squads have done to hurt the current AvA. Having flown both CT and consistently flown in the AvA, the only problem that I see, is that there are rarely large enough numbers to do anything other than dogfight. The dogfights in the AvA are by far more intense than in any other arena. This was true even before no icons. The reason being, the fields are close together and a fight is readily available if you have two participants, and no one is trying to hold on or gather their precious perk points.
Tonight I chose to fly against a squad that I respect very much. I knew these guys were good and would protect each other. We were equally balanced on sides, and our choices in planes was equally matched. What occurred was a good ole fashion take you out behind the shed wuppin. I tried to give my countrymen the heads up that we needed to work as a unit and utilize better comm's. Only one out 5 countrymen bothered to tune to vox. The other pilot and I flew winged until I had to go to work, and adjusted our tactics to somewhat gain an advantage. By then the squad split to relieve the lopsided pounding our country was getting (also, possibly to have more of a challenge).
I am not saying that all squads need to split up to accomodate someone else's opinion of fair, just the opposite squads would flock to the arena more often if they had more of a challenge (and not only in dogfights). The whole idea of historical arena to me implies historical tactics. So, I would suggest that when you visit the arena, you dust off your microphone, tune to Channel 1 and be a part of the action. Too many times folks just want to do their thing and act as if the other green dots were just lost misguided souls keeping the red dots busy while they poke around for weaknesses in the setup to exploit. To each his own but without squads the arena is a dismal place.