lol Black Death - I'm very much an online gamer, I run a clan on the PS3 (
www.sptroopers.com) as well as helped set up and run a new and shiny casual clan forum (
http://clanz.ipbfree.com/index.php), and have been playing online since the SOCOM beta trials and Hardware Online Arena, way back when (indeed, played online with the PC before that, but gaming on the PC feels too much like working

). Played a online on SOCOM (1,2 and Confrontation), KZ2, Civilization 3,4 and Revolution, Hearts of Iron I and II, whichever Quake had online in it (2 I think), Wipeout HD, HAWX, Blazing Angels 1 and 2, Burnout Paradise, and so on...... Don't believe me, you can see my trophy list Black Death, and while it won't cover all of those games, it'll give you enough of an idea

.
So that's not why I'm posting at all. But there's no reason why there can't be alternate unlocks for the things in the single-player side of things - there's enough single player missions that you could sort it that way as well - that way both the multi-player and single-player crowd get to have their fun. As it is, half the Xbox and a third of the PS3 crowd are locked out, for no good reason.
I guess I don't like stuff that prevents people enjoying things, and there's no real reason why the offline players can't enjoy the full spectrum of planes and loadouts, other than because of a narrow design decision.
Anyways Black Death, got a SOCOM session in half an hour, but will be online with IL-2 in a couple of hours, and if you want a game will be up for it then

.