The reality is in WW2 when you spotted the planes you were attacking, you had time to react, and to engage the enemies. In this game, you do not. Partly because of the way it renders dots, partly because of many other things with how the eye sees vs how the game renders...
End result is turning icons off or "down" seriously hinders both sides before-flight-manuvers, and it dictates that the side with the best turning, slowest-stalling, plane wins. It throws ALL historical tales of how FW190s trounced SpitVs out the window. It disregards BnZ and energy fighting. All it is, is HIDING from a fight, PICKING a cheap and easy target that in real life would have seen you.
Look, there's enough wrong with FSO as it is. Don't go making it worse. Don't buy the AvA propogands. It's not better. It's not a higher skill bracket. It's cheap and changes every gameplay dynamic in a completely unhistoric way.