Would you be in favor of HTC creating a reason to defend a newly taken airbase? For example, ack doesn't come up immediately and the flags stay white much longer after capture. Imho, until something like does occur, gameplay will continue to suffer.
I would have not much hope that this or similar changes (like hangars staying down for extended times after capture) would change the general play dynamics. It possibly could even increase the phenomenon. After some adjustment time, the horde will learn to keep hangars up, and just become even bigger. They may
defend now (but only as long as necessary), but that doesn't mean the other side will actually counter attack, not to speaking of defending that base in the first place.
Because one main important factor in the whole problem is the general unwillingness to react and to defend. The system as is does rarely create prolonged battles, because no place is "worth" it. All bases count the same for "the war", and if you can hope to grab two bases instead of defending (or re-capturing) a single one, it's clear what will happen most of the time.
It's that part of the game dynamics that I personally want to see changed the most. Create truly strategic hot-spots that are more worth fighting for than grabbing 3 different coastal VBases in insane horde NOE's. Either by reintroducing a kind of zone bases with big impact on local resupply, or additional regional ('zone') targets with a similar function, or by assigning a simple point value depending on base type and size for winning the war (like VBase=1, small Airfield=3, large airfield =6). Something
so valuable that it's creating a battle, that it's worth fighting for even against fierce resistance.