There are still other draws such as monday night madness (1 hr mindless furballing) and FSO and scenarios.
Next scenario "Operation Konrad" (late-war Eastern Front) running April 11 and following 3 Saturdays.
Come join us, GG! 
Personally I think this is were the draw is. The CM team puts on some awesome Scenarios and I feel they alone are worth $10-$20 per scenario/event. Plus there are some other events. I think that alone is something that can boost this games longevity is if we can get a few more people involved with events.
Well I took a nap last night while the game downloaded and then came back about 2 hours later it was all done. Went offline and flew with the mouse a little bit just to get my bearings and set some of the video settings. Pulled my CH gear out from under my bed but didn't set it up yet.
I know the CH gear isn't the best stuff these days, but it was better than anything back in the day. My stuff is like brand new still. That being said, I would love to have one of those VKB setups, but I can't afford that kind of outlay for a game that I won't play that much probably.
One thing that I like about the CH stuff is the button layout. The throttle and the stick have great button layout, but I have small hands and I can't really reach the controls on a lot of the buttons on the stick. Like I had to reach my hand up to hit some of those buttons on the top.
Anyway. Getting close to seeing my butt back in the game.
I miss AKAK.
I miss him to, I met him at awcon98, The guy GAVE me my first HOTAS a complete CH set up. I gave away the old gameport gear when it was going obsolete.
I still have all my CH USB gear. I use mostly Virpil and Winwing/Winctrl now but I still use my CH throttle quadrant and on a blue moon my yoke.
I also have a spare Fighter Stick, Pro Pedals, and a quadrant I use for spare parts. Hit me up if you need a part as APEM who purchased CH no longer sells parts and they have been pretty much become a budget brand due to being 8 bit.