Well, there is a real problem.
Whatever the "full real" settings become, these will be "enforced" to everyone in top-level servers/coops/online wars.
So, we got to be carefull in setting the "most diffcult level", because this will be the guide for many cases.
On the other hand, we do know that game can't become realistic.
We can simulate a lot, but to be honest, we actually have a lot of advantages and disadvantages over real situation.
On Saturday I was flying over the British Channel and enjoyed a fantastic view and visibility and I said to myself: "real pilots could see much more than what we see in our small monitors". Then again, I watched the information screen in the Airbus and I saw the external temperature at 10.000m, which was something like -70 degrees Celcius (I don't recall the exact number, but it was really cold) and I said to myself "I've been several times at +10k on my IL-2 BF's and....it wasn't cold
".
You do get the point, don't you?
So, the question should not be whether we prefer realism or not, because we will
never get realism in a PC flight simulator.
The question should always be: how do we make the game as close to reality as possible,
without making it silly difficult (i.e. is there a reason to start walking or running to the plane and then climb-open canopy-seat inside-put belts...etc., you get the point, don't you?).
In my opinion, developers completely understand this need and they do their best to accommodate it, so I have trust in them (until I discover that red planes are uber and then start yelling at them because I get shot on my BF
).