Us old farts started out in AW and/or WB when there were hefty hourly charges to play. It was not uncommon to have monthly bills in the $100-200s in those days. As a result, most folks were disinclined to RTB except on special occasions, because time not spent fighting was big money wasted. So most of us only tried hard to land in scenarios, or if we a higher kill score than normal and wanted that final flourish at the end of the film, or if we'd collected the pelt(s) of particularly Hated Enema(s) and wanted not only the filmed landing but the chance to taunt the victims on the radio while cruising homeward.
Of course, pretty much everybody set out with the intention of have a stellar sortie and landing it. There was very little of the kamikaze stuff you see so much of today. But if we only had a couple of kills and were low on ammo, we usually stayed in the fight until we died. We were paying a lot of money to fight, not cruise. Not many folks would intentionally auger, but most would make illogical engagement decisions and go down swinging.
Old habits are hard to break. To this day, I don't really get the strong desire to RTB unless I've done something special. Then it occurs to me that this would be a cool hop to land. I RTB a lot more now than I did in DOS AW, however, but that's mostly the result of the more detailed damage model in AH. I'll lose an aileron or get wounded or something and head for home, because it's no real fun to fight under those conditions, and getting home alive is then something of a challenge.
