You can miss the game or you can adjust. When Higheye gets the liquor in him he talks about how he used to have to fly 10 miles each way to a furball in nothing but rags and then get a whuppin but his daddy sure did love him. Then he passes out in the tower.
I can’t see how the game will recover even if it was free, there’s just too many high quality competitors, that’s why I play a bunch instead of trying to get everything out of AH.
Not to pick on you but I see this all the time, but I think it's a fall back excuse.
I've known people put in a year of AcesHigh, leave, return after years for a tour or 2 and be acceptably competitive, including myself in that.
AcesHigh does have a number of well practised flyers but that most definitely isn't a wall between enjoying AcesHigh in the long term.
Dark Souls games have been all the rage for a number of years now, so high difficulty and overcoming said difficulties clearly appears to drive a thriving section of the gaming market.