It seems this thread is implying that most people are still playing offline. What? I don't think i have ever touched single player in the original IL2, mabye Quick Mission Builder for target practice. I always figured Single player was just put in just to say it's there and as a side show to the real magic of multiplayer. Nothing is better then the experience of public servers, online campaigns and squadrons!
And i am even more surprised you have a fully modded HOTAS setup and you have never played online! I would of surely thought you would be using that to dominate everyone on the ATAG server.