I think the boundary between realism and masochism is not a straight line but a blurred something that's meandering all over the place. To me civil flight sims as FSX are procedure sims first and foremost - the actual operation of the aircraft and the depth of its systems are what makes or breaks the sim experience in them. Combat flight sims on the other hand do simulate the reason why these crates were built - military operations. The military experience (from a simple sportive dogfight contest to carefully planned and built historical missions) is what forms the core of the sim experience here.
Now ... we really need to ask ourselves if the system depth of civil sims is really necessary or even desirable in a military sim? Does having the primers for the on-board electrics simulated really contribute to the sim experience? Not in my opinion. IMO systems which do have a direct influence on the military experience (i.e. accurate engine management, weapon systems, oxygen modelling for high-alt stuff, radio comms etc) should be as realistic as possible, but without impeding usability of the program itself. It's pointless to simulate the radio comms of a long-range weather recon plane down to the last rivet since I bet the least of us here are fluent in morse code (which is the way german aircraft on such missions sent their reports back: they extended a long cable serving as radio antenna and morsed their findings as vocal comms weren't up to the long distances back then) and that part of the game would simply be aggravating.
So for me bottom line is: As realistic as necessary, as simple as possible.
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