My thoughts on HOing,
It's a viable shot, but highly risky as your opponent can shoot you just as easily as you can shoot him. If I'm in a Mossi and a zeke wants to HO me then I'll answer his call with 4 303s and 4 20mm hispanos.
My mossi can take more punishment, my mossi have more and better guns, the guns are all in the nose as well while his cannons are wing mounted. Everything is in my advantage. If he wants to play to my strengths then that's his mistake. Besides, the Ho shot is without a doubt the easiest shot to avoid in all of aerial combat. The closure rate is so high that any maneuver in any direction makes the shot almost impossible to make. That's all you have to do to avoid a HO shot, turn in any direction. If you died from a HO shot then it's really your own mistake. Either you didn't even try to avoid it, or you failed to keep your SA up and didn't see the other guy coming in.
Also, going for the Ho shot gives up the first turn advantage. If you see your opponent going for the HO shot then you can make your first turn much sooner than him and be on his tail in 1 turn.
I always found the HO complaints on 200 kind of hilarious because I knew that they probably flew right into their opponents guns and thought "He won't shoot me". This is aerial combat! The objective is to shoot the other guy down!