I had a situation a month ago or so, where on my first flight, and my first enemy encounter, the guy zooms in from 5k away and HO'd me. In my frustration I got on 200 and complained about the HO.
All the replys were the same "they did it in real life" or my interpretation of replys.."Ho's are not only acceptable, but encouraged", so now I really try to size my opponent up as we merge, if he counters all my moves to stay head-on, I HO'em, if he looks like he's gonna manuever to the side, I do the same. This game is so much more fun when we can fight instead of being sucker punched, my ACM is already poor, but I have bail out and take-offs mastered!
Also, the LA7 is not the only HO fighter, they all can do it. I have a bigger problem with N1K's and Typhoons HO'ing, I watch these guys much closer on merge.