It also made it much more difficult for those with lessor numbers that want to defend by attacking (which is always the best solution)...
I must disagree with this. There are times when attacking will just get a hoard to up in defense, and then they will say "hey, lets go take A*** since we already got the hoard up". Usually it IS best to defend through porking ord, and troops, and I think that many are too timid or slow to go on the offensive.
For example, Limbo0 and I were attacking A1 from A4. We were the only planes past the radar ring, yet alone the sector line, even when we had 1-2 planes coming over to A4 every 10 minutes or so. As soon as we got the knits attention and drew their planes lower, THEN everyone came NEAR A1. No one seemed to be willing to get their hands dirty.
It appears that the latest changes to the game have forced countries to work together more... not less. There were whines about the base sneaks and then the changes were made to make it tougher and more people fly in missions now. Now your whining to push it back the other way.
As I said above, no one wants to get their hands dirty and fight. They want to avoid fights by sneaking undefended bases or by smashing the defenders with a 10-1 numbers advantage.