In fact a lot. It may not matter to you, but many players do play the game with different intentions and for different reasons (the war), and actual abuse of the side-switching ability does impact them. Locating goons or CV's, transmitting planned missions and so on. OF course, the amount of spying is usually vastly exaggerated, being used as an excuse for everything that went wrong, but the problem is still there.
We could ask you the same things just for flying a cartoon plane. Nothing better to do?
It's not only a cartoon flying game, it's also a war game. Nothing wrong with taking it as such. The "war" is in Aces High for a good reason
I suppose that I could have gone into more depth with my sentiments, but I was in a hurry to go somewhere.
I understand that the war is important for generating the fights that I like, but confining a player to one country for 12 hours sometimes limits the fights when weighing the 12-hour switch against possibly wanting to switch sides in less time as sometimes the number of players in the arena and which country they are on can be quite dynamic. Hamstringing players to a 12-hour time switch for the few that may abuse the system is less-than desirable.
I completely agree, it happens, but the accusations and failures attributed to that kind of behavior are vastly exaggerated, like you said, and can be ascribed to many other reasons.
As far as flying a cartoon plane goes, it is a hobby. It is not something that consumes me to to point where I take it personally and call folks spies/cheats/hacks, etc if my side is not winning teh warz or cry about these players on the forum. Sure, it is a competitive game with some goal oriented strategy and modicum of skill required but It is still a game. The way that some folks take it to heart and blow a gasket leads me to seriously question the reality that some of them live in.
If someone needs to abuse the system to get kills, sink CV's or otherwise gain advancement for their beloved chess piece, than they probably aren't very good or sportsmanlike to begin with and, in the end, aren't worth being concerned about. If someone really wants to be a dick, they will. Trying to change doctrine of game-play rules only makes them more creative and harder to catch.