Well I do know what I'm talking about contrary to your ill informed opinion. The lack of a first person body in the pit is an immersion killer. Most people wont be able to read the gauges anyways and will use the on screen overlays that have been used with IL2 for years. Why show AI crew if you cant see yourself? Fact is you should see yourself in the pit and have an option to turn off realism and go bodyless for your type of player.

I rather be invisible than ugly.

Which is more of an 'immersion killer': 'on screen overlays', or 'lack of a first person body'? Fact is this comes down to personal preference, and I don't need a 'first person body', I've got one of my own. I'd be interested to learn how anyone can state that ' most people wont be able to read the gauges' - don't you think there would have been complaints by now if they couldn't? If an on-screen pilot is an option, I'd have no objections, but don't try to justify insisting on it through dubious assertions about 'realism'.

With the varying resolution textures i've seen in stock and modded IL2 as well as in newer products like FSX, Black Shark, etc, it's entirely possible to read the gauges in a modern sim running on modern hardware and actually fly by the gauges instead of on-screen messages, not to mention how helpful 6DOF cockpits are in this regard.
Add custom snap views like the ones RoF has for hard to reach instruments and people who lack head tracking equipment, and everyone will be able to fly by the gauges and not by pop-up messages.

Again, i have no objections to a pilot body as long as i can turn it off on the fly when it obscures the instruments and switches i want to use. The instruments and controls are more important for me, because i don't have a fancy HOTAS set and i'll most probably will have to use the optional clickable cockpit for SoW. If i had a custom simpit with actual instruments and had everything mapped to actual swtches and buttons, then i might fly with the pilot body enabled all the time, but not until then.

Yes! This ease is exactly what I was aiming at. As an online pilot, I don't want to be at a disadvantage by using a higher resolution :)

If it could be made as realistic for the lower res users as higher res, that would be great, but currently in IL-2, the lower res enjoys the ability to see the dots A LOT further than with a higher resolution.

It would be really great if a game technical solution would be found to balance this.

-Untamo