I wouldn't mind seeing Pyro's exact words. I don't doubt your memory, just what he said and how you interpret it may be different from how I may interpret it

Having followed the "perk the C-Hog" battle from beginning to end, the kill statistics were and recently have been brought up repeatedly as the key justification. The recent post illustrated how the Spitfire may be a consistent leader in air to air, but has always been relatively close in stats to two or more aircraft, whereas the C-Hog dominated the arena dramatically in air to air by a factor of 2 and was also used extensively and effectively as an air to ground plane. The fact that the Spit is generally an inferior ground attack plane yet is seeing heavy use reflects the shift in the MA away from strat to furballing in recent cycles.
Personally, I saw no reason to perk the C-Hog and certainly no reason to perk the Spit IX or Spit V. If you don't like getting shot down by Spitfires, learn to fly something they can't touch like an awesome e-fighter (Bf109G-10?), a solid turn fighter (A6M5), or the dweebiest unperked plane of all (N1K2). I wonder if the C-Hog were unperked if everyone would start flying it again? Or was it just a fad that has now been solidly broken?