Maori makes a good point that there's more to FM than just improving or degrading performance across the board. The ability to alter FM within certain parameters wouldn't just be top speed, but also things like stall speed, loaded weight, G-stress, turn radius, engine overheat time and a host of other factors.
When I proposed the -20%/+10% figure, I pulled it out of thin air; actual changes to parameters would have to be left up to those who know a lot more about aerodynamics and aviation history.
The idea is that serious reductions to performance would would represent a really beat up plane and/or a plane flying with really poor fuel. They should rightly be very rare. They'd represent things like the AVG's P-40/Hawk 81s towards the end of their service life, the F4Fs of the "Cactus Air Force" after a few months of hard use on Guadacanal, or some of the really poorly built Soviet, Japanese or Luftwaffe airframes.
Slight bonuses over nominal performance would represent factory fresh planes with souped up engines, extra weight removed, fancy wax jobs and the sort of stuff you get on racing planes, not combat aircraft. Souped up combat aircraft did appear occasionally, especially for aces, high ranking officers, factory test planes and/or propaganda purposes.
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