You might've missed MadBlaster's latest post there, Blackdog.
I think I get what he's trying to say. He's all for full-real, as long as whatever comes with it has an actual impact in the game, while flying, and isn't just "going through the motions".
I can definitely see an option for that. I might even use it from time to time if I just don't want to bother heating up the engines (suppose you still fly with CEM, you just don't have to wait 2m for the engines to heat up like on the Blenheim). Sometimes we can't be flying for too long, and those things don't add much more than the feeling of actually being there.
I still don't think they should be removed from the game. I do believe that realism for realism's sake is a good thing - even if it means individual fuel cocks, priming the fuel for a while and all that. I want to feel like I'm there - I wish I could smell it, and feel it on my hands. The whole experience... heck, I sometimes even wish someone would do a Pacific carrier battle taking a whole real-life weekend, 24/7 - forget sleep! You're going up at 5am morning patrol/scouting! 6 hours of scouting for the enemy fleet! I would be the first to register for a whole weekend of that! (Any takers?
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However, I totally understand your position, where you just don't want to bother with it if it doesn't affect flight at all, and definitely think it wouldn't be bad for it to be an option. I still want to be able to do those things, for the sake of immersion.