I came back after ten years also. Still got the score padders, strat porkers, grammar nazi's, HO n Go'ers, and dr7 is still playing except I have seen him in a plane recently in which I asked him had hell froze over. The game play is still arcade style in my opinion. I just purchased the P-47 in DCS World and I was woken up to what a flight sim was when I finally took off and the plane flopped over because I wasn't compensating for the engine torque.
There's some OG players still in AH and some new OG players in Aces High. All are generally cool people.
So there should be no difference from when you stopped playing.