It takes forever to log on and play a game in Steam. You have too many entry barriers and that is why I don't enjoy playing there. You cannot just respawn like we do in AH3. The download for War Thunder there was like 20 gigs for Steam and there was no effective interface for mapping controllers and keyboards. The game felt much different than AH3 and with external views and gun sights more like a cheap arcade game.
Having just tested it, it takes just over 9 seconds to launch an online game with a shortcut on the desktop and that is with Steam not currently running on my PC. Not sure why it takes you so long to get through Steam.
Aces High won't change, some will log in through Steam and some won't. It should not change any of the settings for the game, nor will it change anything but the community through new blood (you can decide if that is good or bad).