In my opinion not even the best glass in the world will ever be scratch free, at least I haven't seen it, not in moving objects like planes, trains or cars but even some buildings e.g. in dusty environments with strong winds.
I also think many are confusing this: In my post I said "give the glass some texture" and as we all know from physics there is no perfect surface. Even high tech mirrors do have a surface structure and a cockpit window is certainly not a high tech mirror in a vacuum and hermitically sealed environment.
The important message I want to convey here is that there are stains from water drops, dirt, smashed bugs, minor glass degradation, residue from various sources, even from the inside, e.g. touching the glass or just breathing. Did any of you really ever see a perfect surface without even some of this? Because I sure didn't.
There are countless sources for textured glass, not only hefty scratches. However, none of you will, hopefully, disagree that you can always see the canope glass. You don't just have to guess it's there - you can see it. This effect is produced by reflections and texture.
As such I must say I like the idea of a coupling with the aging slider but considering the hefty default aging I believe at least a little bit of realistic glass would be fine. Right now the glass is just
perfect. As if it wouldn't have seen the real world at all. Not a single stain on it, nothing. Only a very slight reflection of sunlight.
Considering how they implemented those new sounds I really hope that the coming SDK's will make it possible or that they maybe think about this as I assume making a glass texture is
much easier than re-doing the sounds and since you are in the cockpit 99% of the time it'd add a lot to the realism and imersion.
Also I did a quick random search on youtube just to illustrate the point here and entered "warbird cockpit" and first result I got was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=lE-F29kBjsE
Now this may not be the best maintained plane in the world but even so - it's what I would expect. You can clearly see the glass surface. As everything in this world it's just not perfect although you may never realize this unless you pay attention.
You can also see this beautifully in this video here,
notice the tons of tiny scratches on the canope when the plane turns:
And I have yet to see proof of a scratch and stain free canope. Especially considering the crazy airflow that goes over it you'd have to expect it to get sandblasted by everything that gets caught up between propeller and the canope.
That said I would very much like to see some typical glass texture that could even be worsened depending on the aging slider setting. Bear in mind though that all pilots would still want to have vision so the effect of the aging slider should be mild. The reflection of the cockpit itself could eventually be a bit stronger though as it also provides much of what then leads to a recognition of the glass.