I agree with Vladd, we have lots of late war planes, many of which were quite rare. We have enough variety in competitive fighters for the MA that no matter what style of fighting you like, (BnZ, TnB etc) there is a plane you can use. Now it looks like HTC is going back and filling in many of the planes that actually fought most of the war and are much more historically significant than the La-7 for example.
Contrary to popular assertion, I believe that many of these will be flown quite a bit in the MA. Some people seem to think that people are so bound up with score and such that they would never fly anything that doesnt give them maximum advantage. I disagree. Many people choose to fly planes that they love for historical or aesthetic reasons, and despite the plane having a performance handicap against the best of the late war superplanes, these people quickly learn to fly their pets to the best advantage.
The P-47 crowd springs to mind. Although the P-47 isnt the fastest plane in the game, and it certainly isnt the most manouverable, it has legions of faithful fans (of which I am one) that use its strengths to great advantage in the MA.
While I do care about my score, it isnt my sole driving factor in everything I do in AH. I try to keep it up there (mostly unsuccessfully) but that is balanced other factors many times. While I certainly pick the best tool, or in this case the best airplane, for the job if I am playing the strat game, and trying to capture bases, or if I am trying to boost my score up a little, many times I just want to fly a certain plane that I particularly love. The challenge is fun too. How long will this Avenger last against those 3 Nikis? (answer: not very
)
I for one am very happy to see the Val, and I can only hope that the SBD is close on its heels.