I spend about 20% of my time in the DA over the last 2 years with one aim - to improve my time in the MA. I've never landed kills in the DA, never gone for a ditch and taken on every red icon I see regardless of plane type, relative alt, relative e-state or worried about who was on my 6 after I had aquired my intended target with the makings of a gun solution.
I just pick a target and see if I can get them - so on and so forth -it's a gunnery and flight model exercise.
But that's not to say my view of the DA is right nor wrong- it serves no purpose to try and alter the world, even the cartoon one. Dodging screaming Temps prepares for dodging screaming 262's when they infrequently come into MA calculations. Trying to out-turn a Brewster prepares for the same situation with Zekes in the MA - because the DA is about the only place in the game where Tempests and Brewsters have a number parity with other planes.
So whilst it was fun having little or no Temps for time, it's not life or account threatening. There's a lot of crew in the DA you never see in the MA, but that's cool. There's a lot of my squaddies who never go into the DA - most of them really.
The DA is what you want it to be - for me it's my driving range - that's a good enough analogy.
Happy Trails.