In my defense, my neighbors and I are not your average FS9/FSX fliers. I literally have around $450 in add-ons, not including aircraft.
FSPassengers, RealEnvironment Extreme, USA ground environment to just name a few.
FSPassengers creates the realism of flights, it grades you on how you preform each flight. Grades you on if you have the beacon turned on before engine start, landing lights under 10,000ft and 250knots or below under 10,000ft, correct altimeter, no more than 30 degree bank angle, no reverse thrust under 60 knots, and ect.
Breaking some of the aircraft operations limits will result in broken equipment, such as flaps being lowered at high speed or landing gear.
It simulates failures and makes the plane react as it does in real life, such as not having all the engines perfectly sequenced in thrust.
I fly the IFly B737, this also adds to the realism when I fly, here is the link:
http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=iflyfs9So again, I do have A LOT more add-ons to my simulator than most... this might be the reason why.