I am sorry but if you think this game could ever match the likes of MW in sales then you have your head buryed in the sand, the emphasis currently is on modern warfare so the setting of il2 is not "hip" it's a sim that requires a joystick and a lot of time to learn an aicraft also it will undoutable allways require a decent pc to run and the console market has reduced the number of ppl that might have brought a pc.
There simple are not that many ppl that would buy il2 in comparison to MW unfortunately

but they are the ones missing out. They spend £50 a year on a "new" game i.e. a few new textures we are going to spend ~£30 and get a whole load of complex highly detailed aircraft... If a games popularity was based on the effort a dev team put into it then everyone would be playing il2 however that is not the case