JAB, roger on that. I actually wrote what I did really quickly as I was late for work. In fact, even edited it but wasn't able to do a good job of it. Yes, I understand what you are saying and though I do not agree with it, your point is valid. What you bring up is a topic which is in the gray area. I mean, you can start nitpicking opportunity costs and all that down to the fact of how fast it takes you to get to the furball and the slower aircraft is then foregoing potentially earned perks over taking a faster aircraft. A whole host of things like that. But really, to just keep it simple, I just would like to see a more reasonably tierd perk system where there are a few planes in the 3-10 range and which are very affordable to the common player. Again, some work hard for 50 perks and to risk them on an F4U-4 which hardly flies any better than an LA7 is riduculous for most. So they either save for the 200 Me262 or they could be using them on aircraft more reasonably priced...and what goes hand-in-hand with that, the LA7 and 51Ds might see a .05% decrease in their useage which is not such a bad thing based on what I see in the MA. (Or, there'd be a slight increase in the F4U-4 and Spit14 with a decrease in their cost. Would it be unbalancing to see an extra percent of either of those in the MA?) If you use all your perkies, fly that F4U-1 once or twice and you have enough to fly these "arena monsters" a few times again.
That's my point. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it's just a personal preference. In a way, I'm casting my vote for the direction of Aces High...though I understand clearly that Aces High is not a democracy. ;-)