Its too bad combat tour never got added to the MA. I think with that type of game play with on going missions and "side" story type things it would keep the players of today more interested than what the game has been boiled down to.
Even with all the options this game has, it is boiled down to a half dozen fighters that everyone uses, a couple GVs and a couple of buffs. Game play is the same, smash and grab, or NOE. GV are either supply running or doing the sneak run disappearing if defense shows up.
There us to be so much more going on in the game. Yes we had more numbers so that Im sure helped, but even with Trev95s missions once a week you can see there IS interest in these things. Years ago we had a number of players that when they logged on everyone was looking forward to some action. These "generals" put together missions which generated defensive missions. LTARs always hard a ground war going and they had only a third of the vehicles that we have now.
I think some dedicated "generals" be it either players stepping up, or added code to simulate things would go a long way to adding "new" stuff to the game. As long as the missions are mixed up and not the same old NOE thing over and over. Coading it would be tough as it would have to monitor the action and bases and then generate a mission plan and then execute almost on the fly as it were. I know when I ran missions for the 444th Air Mafia all those years ago it was almost a "full time" job. Squad nights I spent all of my time planning and setting up missions either from the tower or in a buff on a long porking mission, so I could keep track of what was going on and what I thought we needed where.
It the game play was always changing every 30-40 minutes due to this missions I think it would keep everyone more interested. Buff guys would be doing what they like, fighter would be doing what they like and GVer would be doing what they like with something different coming around the corner every 30-40 minutes.
