From what I've seen in the past, the improvement is there, and I congratulate you on that.
Back onto subject at hand:
I agree, I believe that a death model would be cool, having parts of your plane flying across the runway after you whack a landing would be nice. Would be a good option to have it so that you can choose between the plane death squence, a pearly gate death sequence or no sequence at all. But having all three is merely a Christmas wish. Having just 2 of the three (death squence on or off) is more important.