It is always in the eye of beholder Babylonian. I am not into air racing with warbirds. It does not mean that I do not respect what the sport did. Were it not for the racers, most of these aircraft would have been long ago scrapped. As for digging aircraft out of ditches, that is going to be less and less feasible as time goes by. The P-38's at Westpac right now are some very interesting examples of "true" combat veterans that will be restored to 100% as produced, with some concessions to meet FAR's.
The latter are more attractive than the former to me, but, it is the history I crave and what it represents.