It's all a pissing contest as far as I'm concerned. "I've got the most accurate book/charts/pilot accounts therefore I win" or "I've flown a Cessna for a few hundred hours, it's basically the same as a 1500 HP warbird". I could never tell if a FM was "porked" or not, how could I? how could anyone? Only the combined knowledge of the real aircraft's engineer, ground crew and pilot could tell such a thing. Every time someone calls out a "porked" FM I'm totally stunned, how could they know?
FM are important in a sim yes and should be somewhat accurate (not that I would tell if they weren't) but not that it consumes half of the production budget of a game. I would think it's easier to tweak FM's than to try to fix a whole game-engine.
