No more huge hit on FPS when looking towards large towns.

Building pop up at much further distance (compare looking at Folkestone from Hawkinge in Il-2 1946 mod map).

Makes much, much better utilization of latest video cards and quad-core CPU's.

Cockpit animations.

No more B.S. "CEM" that gives you a "engine overheat" message, where you then open radiator fully, and magically engine is "normal" and like brand new; repeat ad infinitum.

Airfield AI that puts a runway marker out automatically so you see the correct runway to land on.

Merlin engine sound (with mod, and yes it's better than Il-2 sound mod)

Motorways and railways with curves!

Clouds move with wind.

What´s up with this whole missing Battleship thingy? I never knew huge fleets engaged in the channel during the BoB? They were all busy protecting the trade routs and other stuff, the channel itself was really dangerous for battleships as well.

Yes, this one. IL-2 is approaching unplayable for me now simply because of the much-improved CEM in CoD.

Same

For Dunkirk we need Destroyer Type Ships. But i think if the SDK is available, the problem will be solved by talented 3D-Designers outthere ;)

Good is:

Aircraft detail
Cockpit graphics + shadows in cockpit
Damage model and Flight model
CEM with clickable is absolutely great
Animations of pilot bailing out, looks sharp even from larger distance.

A: the name....

Good light and shadow effects in cockpit and aircraft surfaces.
A good base for make nice screenshoots.
Always in theme visual, the strong point of this game, I dont like the fire laser style Tie fighter; sometimes that ruined the screenshots.

I like the list the OP has compiled. It shows the awesome potential CoD has.. I mean, hell, if some patch makes tanks etc. player-controllable, you could very well set up ground battles as well... the complexity of vehicles is there.

However, the bad thing is, as we all know, that CoD in general is only half-finished and doesn't appear to be fixed in a reasonably short time. This tips the scale in favor of "sigh, I'll rather play something else and file this one as a 'rip-off'" for most people.

..the expandability for sure.
I mean, ok alot of bugs affect CloD at the moment but the core engine exists and can be further developped. The textures arent good-looking, ok but they can be changed, the FM/DM idem can be improved as any other element in this sim.
At the moment we have a crap-new sim, in near future we''ll have a polished new sim. How did we get this unpleasant situation is another matter and all complaints must be respected, these have a raison d'etre.
Cheers