I hate to break it to you, but the La-7, P-51, Spitfire IX, and N1K2 will never be perked. They've been running about 40% of the kills and 60-70% of the usage for the past year now at least.
One thing you need to get through your heads. HTC doesn't give a **** about air combat. They don't care about 'dweeb planes'. They care about money, and that is all they care about. And there have been more people in the MA in the past year then ever before, and do you think they are happy or unhappy about this?
Yes, the Spit IX and N1K2 are 'easymode'. Well, I don't know if you could stretch it that far, but you could make an argument for it. They are the fastest "good turners", so of course they are going to be popular. Look at it like this. By themselves, the Spit IX and N1K2 render about 75% of the planeset useless. Again... if you think HTC cares about that you are deluded. HTC would rather have 5,000 people flying Spits and N1K2s than 4 people flying P40E's or 109F's. And, if choosing between a plane that is faster, turns better, has better firepower, and accelerates better and some other plane.... why on earth would you choose the other plane? You can't expect people to voluntary put themselves at a disadvantage vis a vis anyone else in a game, thats plain ****ing retarded.
Personally, I don't feel that the P-51 needs to be perked. Yes, it is fast, yes it has good firepower, and yes it climbs well. OK, so it is the boom and zoomer of choice. So? It has weaknesses. The biggest one is it accelerates poorly, so if a P-51 pilots finds himself slow and in a crowd of enemies he is in trouble. Second, it is balanced vis a vis the other fast planes- namely the Typhoon, 109G10, and 190D9.
The La7? Well, that renders the rest of the planeset useless. The P-51 outperforms one up high, and the guns are easy to hit with, so the P-51 is still a viable alternative. The La-7 is the suckass pilot's plane of choice. And typically, it shows in the way they fly it. I haven't run into an La-7 pilot yet than I can't kill in a fight about 9 times out of 10, if they fight. Of course, since they KNOW they are suckass pilots, they don't fight. They Bore and Zoom, "fighting" only until they don't have a huge and very clear advantage in numbers and altitude. I think the La-7, more than any other single factor, has changed our main arena into a sissy arena. The LW planes have always had to fight like sissies, since they suck, but there was a stigma attached to them. There is no such stigma attached to the La-7, in fact most of the sissy's flying it are idolized by other people for being such 'smart' pilots.
So, lets say the few hundred 'vets' that aren't happy with the way the game is all decide to quit. Ok, lets make it a round 300. So 300x15 is 4,500. Ok, HTC just lost 4,500 a month. Now lets say HTC gets tired of hearing about how ****ing boring his game is now and decides to change it. Ok, La7/runstang/Spit IX/N1K get perked and the emphasis gets shifted from milkrun/landgrab/gangbang back to air to air combat. Well, unfortunately the 4,000 people that think it is fun the way it is quit. So... 4,000 x 15 is.... 60,000. Which do you think will put a bigger dent in aircraft maintence charges?
So yes, the game has changed a lot from when it was fun. And yes, there are many many times more suckass timid pilots than there were. And if they pay their 15 bucks a month... well, HT has a plane now, so do you think he is happy with the way his game turned out? I do.