I dunno. I think there is a way that "attrition factor" could be used as a balancing tool, used to balance the numbers and spreading the fights out evenly so a "front" can be formed, without restricting players of aircraft choices or numbers all the time. True, no single war/combat simulation game has perfected the balance between gameplay and strategic attrition, but there's no reason why AH cannot be the one, nor that the MA has to stay the way it is.
Of course, "change" always has its opponents, and no variation/innovation can satisfy all players. So I guess the changes that MIGHT occur should be based on an "acceptable range" of gameplay.
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Limiting choices, I guess, will never work on MA. However, limiting the numbers on ammunition, ordnance and fuel, in my opinion, can be done in regards to balance.
I won't explain everything what I have in mind, but one thing I have thought about is attrition based on "usage" not "destruction". Enemies won't be able to effect the available numbers of fuel, ordnance, planes and etc.. but it would be effected by usage. More players in more planes would mean more resources required and spent, and when there is just too much people using resources from one base, in that case it would be effected.
One example is the large-scale jabo missions. With the attrition factor based on usage, pulling off a stunt like that won't come free.
Currently, when a mission like that launches, people just dump everything they have at the target, and if they get killed they take up bombs and do it again and again, repeating the process until the field is closed - thus, the display of "raw power" - more pilots, more planes, more bombs to swarm enemy field like locusts.
In what I have in mind, if something like a large-scale jabo mission fails, the amount of bombs, rockets and ammunition and fuel wasted in vain would have to effect the availability of resources one way or another.
With this sort of model, only in the cases where 1) a "combat zone" is too heated up and boggling with planes and pilots, or 2) large amounts of resources are consumed in a single move(large missions), or 3) whencountry numbers are too radically ubalanced will it be effected by attrition - thus, encouraging numbers balance, spreading out the fights, and careful mission planning and execution. On the other hand it would discourage drastic imbalance, too large a furball in one single area, and "go and dump bombs, up again and do it again 'till they're all dead" criteria of missions.
