I really think the A-26 is a better choice than the 217, I like having gunz in the nose, and an effective defence.
If you define choice purely on biggest badest, most potent plane yes.
But that's a race ending in nothing but verly late war monsters. (Also I sometimes have the feeling that most players requesting the "awesome" stuff do forget all their enemies will be able to fly/drive it too
)
I'm not arguing against a A-26 per se.. just saying that the 217 is a competitive aircraft spanning a huge timeframe (early to late war), closing a big gap in the planeset (currently players flying German iron only are stuck with slow EW bomber). It's a better choice in terms of balance, variety and gameplay