I bet every player in the game hates puffy ack.
Defensive side: It sucks/is unreliable. You can't drag bad guys to the puffy ack, it's "just there", maybe it will help you maybe it will kill you, who the heck knows. It's completely random if it will shoot a bad guy on your tail or just shoot you. Field ack on the other hand, has value for the defender, as you can seek refuge in the ack when needed. It actually acts as a surefire defense.
Offensive side: Obviously it's garbage. No one wants to get shot by some random damage generator every time you go above a "magic altitude".
Other than the historical immersion of puffy, how does it make game play better for anyone? Does the immersion really outweigh game play in this case?