Response to Culero continued:
I failed to expound on the antithesis thing.
In capture the flag (arena reset) play, the ends usually justify the means. The idea is to capture more bases faster. The best means by which to do this is not dogfighting, but avoiding dogfights to damage the base quicker. Certainly fights between airplanes occur, but it's better if they can be avoided. If you want to grab a base quick, I can think of two ways. One is to attack bases that are poorly defended, and the other is to use all your forces to overwhelm the opposition.
In game play where players use ACM to fight over a base, the means is the objective and base capture the reward. Though they both involve base capture, the entire character of the two types of game play is different, thus the antithesis.
But I do have a whine about all this. You especially enjoy scenario type play... a sort of aerial role playing immersed in realism. This is great too... but would be very hard to do in the same arena where others are playing capture the flag (you can't control the interferance, and when someone gets close to winning, the arena is porked). They're all good, just that flag capture can be intrusive. So bait me on that >=o)