I must agree, the CT is way more fun for me for four reasons: degraded radar, reduced icons, historical matchups, and a group of people who tend to be more interested in recreating the challenges of actual WWII air combat than scoring points or forcing a reset (i.e. in living up to the "sim" part of the term "flight sim").
I would still like to see icons go away entirely. I personally love going numb or getting lax from searching for 10 or 15 minutes... then getting the adrenaline rush of bouncing or being bounced by the unknown.
For me, the CT has only two flaws:
1. I need to be able to switch sides as often as needed to keep the sides balanced.
2. I get bored with the inherent restrictions on aircraft selection determined by the theater/time frame. Unless you really like flying the Spitfire, there is little fun for the allies in the present theater. I'll never know how the Luftwaffe fliers can stand flying only variations of the 109 and 190. I flat out get bored flying one type, I appreciate my favorites a lot more after contrasting their performance with the other rides.
Unfortunately, no single time and place supports the entire plane set, which means someone will always be unhappy with whatever is currently in the CT.
I have a frustrating, but practical solution to that problem: Rotate through the theaters based on strategic victory. If you like the present theater, fight hard for whichever side is losing so the theater doesn't change. Otherwise, fight hard for the winning side until the theater you prefer is available. Unlike democratic voting where the minority never gets their way, every theater will get its turn, just some will last longer depending on the attitude and performance of the players.
As it stands, most of the time I would rather play (and have mostly played) in the CT with only the Spit, 109, and 190. The environment is much more important than the particular type of aircraft. Also those three aircraft give a good range of variation from turn fighter, energy fighter, and heavy firepower.
HTC has already done a great job, and Aces High just keeps getting better!!!