Actually I can see the point of having a dedicated GV arena where planes just don't come into it at all.
Especially from a GVer standpoint. Really, when you think about it, it couldn't be much worse than say early or midwar, or WWI arena. With the new objects and the new vfield and port layouts it could actually be pretty interesting from a map design point of view. Especially if you swapped out the aircraft carrier for a 2nd cruiser.
That would give you a pretty nice amphib option for a suprise rear attack.
It would not have to be a big map, and you could set up all kinds of interesting things to test, like destroyable, defensible bridges, choke points, etc.
I'm not sure how much time I'd spend in there, but I can appreciate having it as yet one more "option" to choose from. After all isn't having more choices a good thing?