You know what's really funny? All the talk on this board about the good ol' days and These Kids Today and what have you cut be cut and pasted into any one of about four different boards I follow intermittently on hobbies ranging from Cowboy Action Shooting to movie prop/replica collecting.
IIRC, I started playing AW in 1995 or 1996 and by the time I'd been in it for 3 months you heard all the same complaints.
Gavagai is right - the game may change, but the biggest change is the perception of the player.
As for my perspective, here's a few things I've noticed:
1) Anyone who complains about the behavior of a "newbie dweeb" who wouldn't fight when the complainer tried to jump him with a 262 or F4U-4 and a 5k alt advantage needs a good whap to the head with a clue-by-four. You think newbs flying uber planes is the problem? Well, when was the last time you saw a newb in a 262 or Tempest? Of course most of the vets don't stick with perked planes all the time, but if the newbie is getting slammed by much superior planes every so often, how can you blame him for taking the best ride he can, looking to fight at an advantage, and running when he doesn't have one? What else does every 262 do?
If you don't fight how can you learn to fight? If im in a P40 and a couple of spit jump me I'm going to give it all I have. If I didn't want to fight I wouldn't play this game. Too many people hide in the hordes.
2) In a similar vein, if you're that good of an experienced vet, instead of whining about how "these kids today" - the ones with the .05 k/d ratio - aren't taking on a bigger challenge, why don't YOU look at it as a challenge for yourself? They don't play the way you want? Well, you don't play the way THEY want. Why do you think you're right and they're wrong? And if you're such a good pilot and they're such pathetic ones, why can't you beat them when they have alt and numbers?
They are shot down in huge numbers ...look at the k/d
However if they step outside the horde and learn a few maneuvers that might get better, and have more fun. I always though living longer and getting more kills was a LOT more fun than dieing 5 times to ever kill I could get.
3) 90% of this stuff boils down to SA. SA was by far the most important skill for a pilot in WW2, every top ace I know of said it was THE secret to their success. I understand that the game is not a strategic simulation, that base taking is just a frame to make battles happen, but saying the game is all about ACM and 1-1 duels to the exclusion of everything else is ridiculous. Everything here - incoming hordes vs. a few defenders, getting bounced from 10k up, getting picked and gangbanged, enemies running away when they lose the advantage - is a tactical scenario that every WW2 pilot had to face, and dealing with them was every bit as much a part of the pilot's skill set as ACM and gunnery, as was teamwork. No, this isn't a war or even a war simulation, but if you're trying to simulate the tactics, skills, and technical challenges of flying WW2 fighters, 1-1 co-e duels are a poor way to do it.
blah blah blad WWII blah blah blah. This isn't WWII ! its a game Yes SA is important, but if someone looks out over their wing and see 3 guys chasing a lone enemy they are not thinking" ah ha !!! I'm going to test this guys SA !" No too many people lookat it as an easy kill IF they can get there before the others.
4) Because of # 3, I like the game the way it is now a heck of a lot more than I'd like it the way some here seem to want it - essentially, just a bunch of DAs. I'm glad to have a decent co-e 1-1 fight sometimes, but I'd get bored very quickly if that's all there was.
From this comment I get the feeling that in most cases of a 1 vs 1 you end up on the losing side too often. To me it sounds like you have given up on being a good fighter and so feel saver in the horde. I have no idea who you are, and I'm not bashing you here, but thats just the way it sounds to me. People suggesting more combat, and you disagreeing with that.
5) Two things that are worse than anything anyone here is complaining about: alt-monkeys and whole-country gangbangs.
Alt-monkeys are worse because you can't avoid them. If you don't like 40-plane base captures, just fly somewhere else from where they're attacking. At any given time there are always going to be more people not doing that than doing it, and the ones doing it are all concentrated on 1 or 2 bases. But you can't avoid the alt-monkeys (there always seem to be 1 or 2 everywhere), you can't fight them if they won't commit, and you know if you try to fight someone else you'll just get picked. And who wants to spend 90% of their stick time just climbing, climbing, climbing? (Apparently some people...)
Alt monkeys are easy, fly low to middle alt and they will see you from their high perches. Of course you have to be able to fight if your flying down there or each flight is a couple minutes climb out a turn or two and your in the tower. Avoiding a Alt Monkeys passes are as easy to avoid as the HO, it just takes a little practice at a maneuver or two.
The country gangbangs are bad because they don't just offer an alternative to fighting, they make it all but impossible. It's one thing to fight against the odds, but another when you've got 2-1 odds or worse everywhere on the map and, as if that isn't enough, escorted raids of 3, 4, 5 Lanc boxes at 20,000 feet porking every field within 30 miles of the front. It's all fine getting a big local advantage, but what's the fun of making it impossible for the other side to put up a fight anywhere on the map? And in a 3-player game the whole ENY system is just pointless, because the advantage depends on the interaction of the countries more than the raw numbers for any one of them. Getting slammed everywhere while still having a 20 ENY is just ridiculous.
From this comment my guess is your a Knight, and a dedicated one at that (won't switch countries). It happens to every side. The think you have to do is play your game. Your looking at it like you have to win the war before you log off that night. Whats wrong with holding a base or two along the front for the night? Of course we could use your "Thats the way it was in WWII", but seeing as the side were never even in the war that doesn't fly so well.
5) Vulching uppers is establishing local air superiority. Vulching people trying to land is just pathetic (assuming that "vulching" = going in on a new target, not finishing off someone you were already fighting). What are you hoping to accomplish?
Call it what ever you want, its cheap kills. Horde mentality. Establishing local air superiority is having enough air support that any one trying to fly out of the ack coverage doesn't stand much of a chance. Of course that means knowing how to fight again, learning those pesky maneuvers to shot down a MANEUVERING plane
6) Has it occurred to you that that guy is "hiding in ack" because he knows if he doesn't he'll get slammed by someone from 10k up before he can get any speed and alt to fight? Because that's what happened to him within 10 seconds the last three times he left the ack? If you're complaining because you can't find anyone willing to enter a "fair fight," come down to his alt and burn off some e, then see if he'll come out of the ack. Or back off a couple of miles and let him come up. (And if someone in a faster plane goes through ack to lose you, all he's really doing is saving you both the bother of a 10-minute race you won't win anyway. If he's in a slower plane, you should have killed him before he got there, and if you don't want to deal with his ack, what are you doing so close it to begin with?)
I don't have a problem with people getting some alt and some speed in the ack. If they don't want to come out why are they bothering to come up there in the first place. Also, if he's getting hammered as soon as he steps out he might want to learn a think about air superiority. As mentioned above, it the enemy has it ack ain't going to save you. Up from another field and start your counter attack.
7) Just don't tune to 200 unless you're amused by it. And if you do find it amusing, why complain about it?
F### the forum. Just fly.
That's all the ranting I can do today. 
It sounds to me you like it the way it is because you don't want to, or think you can't learn to survive with out your mega squad behind you, or at least hiding in the horde. The horde doesn't think strategically much so here's a tip. Next time the knights....or your country is getting ganged, you and a couple of your buddies up in some ponies, or 38s something with some long legs. Add a couple of bomb and up from a base 1 back from the front line. Climb to alt... at least 15k, and go behind enemy lines. There dive bomb the troops at each base along the front until all of you run out of bombs. If done correctly, you can stop the advancement along a whole front for more than an hour even when your out numbered.
To many people don't know "how" to play the game, they are too wrapped up in winning at all cost, HOin, hording, ganging, and running from the fights.
