On a serious note, flying with or against large missions is a lot of fun.
Taking and defending bases provides something to fight over. Otherwise, it is fur-ball lake in the DA. On a fun night, there is a suspense - a tension - on whether or not the base will fall.
I would rather fly into a mission bent on taking a base than a group of pickers.
The Devil's Brigade is generally a good bunch of guys that I enjoyed flying with and enjoy flying against.