To me plane balance is a subjective thing. Personally when I'm considering plane balance I look at the numbers, and then go by my own experiences either flying or fighting against in the MA and the CT.
IMHO when do planes match up well? When they are relatively close in performance. Either directly matching up well in speed, manuverability, climb rate, etc. Or when the differences are "compatible" Plane A is a little faster but turns a little worse and visa versa. To me match ups like the P-40 vs the Oscar (as an example) would be extremely boring since the Oscar cannot hope to compete with the speed and dive of the P-40 and the P-40 cannot hope to compete with the Oscar in manuverability. All this says to me that the P40 pilot will BnZ untill the E states begin to equalize then he's goig to put the nose down and run away. Doesn't sound like much fun to me. Again IMHO the "good" matchups are the ones like the N1k vs. the F6F, P-51 vs. 190D9/109G10, to name a couple.
These are my ideas of what "balanced" is but I can say with some certainty that someone will look at this and say "that Soulyss guy is out of his mind, who in the hell does he think he is?" I would wager that we as a group will never agree on what a "balanced" setup is.
Now that I've rambled on and on I'll get off my soap box, I dunno what brought all this on.
Must be a slow day at work
Artik, I know we have done a fair amount of PTO stuff lately, look for a move back to the eto oh I'd say circa 1944 in the near future.