How long do you play for? After a session in which you switched once I assume you will need to sleep granting another switch the next time you play. Technicaly you are able to fly one sortie for every country within 12.5 hours. Anything other than that is not side balancing or flying with friends, it is moat likely oppertunism and the denial of that seems to be the main crux of this gripe.
Surely being able to play on two sides for any given session is adequate?
Well that depends.
My flight times Vary allot, from day to day and week to week.
I normally Log in and look at the roster. In the late morning that is usually the Joker's Jokers. Nickel and Hoagi are East Costers. These guys Fly Bish.
In the PM after Work Some of the damned are up on Knights. after that most of the 80th are on Knights as well however Dan and Lew are known to jump sides to find a fight so I could end up flying rook. That's all 3 countries in less then 24 hours.
What really sucks is at 1 pm Pacific when low numbers and high NMY values the 12 hour rule is a game breaker. Better to just log off and play something else. Pretty soon I'l be right where I was a few years ago trying to justify paying good money for a game I don't play enough.
Most of the people comment on this "gripe" happen to be some of the best people in the game. I've never seen the likes of Ink, Juggler, Shuffler, Abuse the game mechanics or behave "Opportunistically", In any way that would require a rule change.
What I see is people wanting the 12 hour rule because they are PO'ed that its harder to hide carriers off the map next to a mountain and don't like large squads changing sides to force a reset to a bad map with bugs for a better one. Oh! that's been done in the last 48 hours, so I guess the 12 hour rule isn't doing anything here either. Considering how often large squads like the Devils Brigade Do this I don't think a 12 hour rule is going to have much of an effect on them. They have already done it with the 12 hour rule in effect.
Think about this. I get text messages from twitter threads I fallow and face book updates on my cell phone., it would be nothing for some one to set a twitter account just for MA mission updates, making any in game rules against spying useless. People could post Mission info, CV locations. People who fallow those threads on their cell phones can Update people online in game in real time. There is nothing stopping me or anyone else from posting screen shots of our Clipboard maps to Facebook.
So what exactly is the 12 hour rules suppose to accomplish other then to deprive us of some fun flying with or against our friends? as Far as I can see its not stopping people from changing it limiting how much time must pass between changes. Again what exactly is this going to solve?