I'm pretty sure the 88 or manned guns have the most kills on record do they not?
In 2015, all manned guns combined were responsible for about 8% of all recorded plane deaths (and about 35% of all deaths by 'ground to air fire', of course including proxies).
However, the vast majority of these were made by the dreaded proximity fused ship 5 inchers. the 88 has only a small share, most probably even much less than the mannable base small acks. That's because it's actually quite difficult to score consistent kills with that slow turning, slow firing time fused gun. Getting anything other than the occasional freak kill against anything not being a 10k bomber flying directly overhead is a task so difficult only very few have mastered it.
In its current form, the 88 is mostly just a distracting annoyance for any fighter maneuvering nearby, and relatively easy to avoid.
I can fully understand the OPs frustration of getting no fight during his hours. However, perking the 88 would hardly improve anything, as the operator would simply move to a differend manned ack, or roll a Wirbel or Ostie. The lack of fights (or battles) is not a result of having ground guns in the game, nor would their removal (or tighter control) improve the general problem.
