I played almost all the sims mentioned here back in the day. And yes, I remember before we even had computers (which doesn't make me all that old, I'm not even 40 yet).
My first real sim was Battle of Britain, Their Finest Hour. I probably put in thousands of hours in that. But I have to give a +1 to the Aces of the Pacific references. It was my favorite flight sim for years after it came out. I had SWOTL too with the expansion disk, and I did enjoy the strategic campaign mode a lot, getting to manage the air war, but AoTP was still my favorite for its superior flight model and immersion. Later I also had the 16 color Red Baron (kind of went backwards technology wise, as it was the predecessor of AoTP), and the immersion there were superb as well. My first jet sim was Jetfighter 2.0, and it just had too much compromised realism, and very little immersion due to a weak campaign mode, so I didn't play it all that much. I had the original Comanche, and while its graphics were cutting edge for its time, it was so unrealistic that I only fired it up to show people what graphics could be like.
Then around the time I entered High School, Falcon 3.0 and Microprose's F-15E Strike Eagle III, came out, and I played both of those for years. Falcon 3.0 had the better immersion and campaign, while F-15 III had the better graphics, flight model, and overall realism.
In college, after some research, I picked European Air War out of those 4 WW2 sims somebody mentioned that came out near the same time, and I concur, it was the AoTP of its day. It remains my favorite offline WW2 sim even today, although my current computer wont run it. I also got Longbow 2.0, but it never ran correctly on any of my computers so I missed what was one of the greats by all accounts. Then I discovered Jane's Fighters Anthology, which was my first real experience playing against others online, as we would set up a LAN as several friends and I would set up missions. There was even a competitive base attack mode that vaguely resembled the concept that AH uses, although on a MUCH smaller scale of course. I played Luftwaffe Commander during this time as well, and that was another pretty good one although not quite up to EAW standards by no means. The only civilian flight sim I ever had during this time was Flight Unlimited III, which I enjoyed (it had a nice P-51). I had Janes WW2 fighters and Janes F-15, neither of which I ended up playing much. The campaign modes just weren't what I was looking for. I like realism to an extreme degree; and if it has nice graphics too thats just icing on the cake. But above all, I have always craved immersion, and a sense of being part of a larger operation. The sims that had dynamic campaign modes were my favorite, and that was always the elusive goal of the '90s sims. Look how many promised it and never delivered! I got Red Baron 3d, but it just wasnt up to the original Red Baron in my mind. Mig Alley was awesome, if a bit buggy. Right before I graduated college, I discovered Air Warrior III, and played it very briefly. Shortly after that, I discovered Aces High (in early 2001) and never looked back.
Since then I have played Hind, Su-27 Flanker 2.0, Janes USAF, Falcon 4.0, Microsoft FS 2003, Il-2 (including most of the expansions), Strike Fighters, Wings over Vietnam, Rise of Flight, and X-Plane 10. Every single sim in that last sentence is awesome, but none of them have held me like Aces High, due to the online competition being so much more demanding and rewarding than offline mode (I know some of those have online modes, but its not as accessible). I know I have skipped many lesser known sims that I have owned and/or played, but the above were the best of them.
The sims that I think I would have enjoyed but never got to play more or less chronologically: Battlehawks 1942; Aces Over Europe; Tornado; Pacific Air War; Flying Corps; B-17 Flying Fortress, the Mighty 8th; Apache vs Havoc/Comanche vs Hokum; Battle of Britain; Warbirds; WW2 Online.
Ones I haven't tried yet but will probably end up getting: Il-2 Cliffs of Dover; DCS A-10C and Ka-50; other sims from Third Wire Productions.
Just looking back over this list brings back lots of fond memories. There needs to be a Hall of Fame for flight sims at an aviation museum somewhere, with suitable old computers set up to run each of them. That would be awesome.
As to the original topic for this thread, I don't think the Do-335 fits the criteria for inclusion into AH, as cool of an airplane it obviously is. There are still a number of planes that would be useful in the MA and in special events left (Ki-100, Fiat G55, Re2005, CR-42, J2MJack, P-61, A-26, Beaughfighter, Fairey Firefly, Gladiator, SB2C, etc), not to mention whole new categories if they ever added floatplanes and flying boats for example (Kingfisher, PBY, Sunderland, Emily, Arado 196, etc).
