Meanwhile, for the last 10 years, our simming community had regular events involving up to 80 players at once, flying HSFW with zero cheat involved (only known french squads allowed) , a much better visual/audio environment than stock, plus excellent mod planes, in an online strategic dynamic PVP campaign called SEOW, all this thanks to charlie, 4shades and lots of individual modders.
Mods have fractured the online community sure, too bad for lone wolves, but what an experience for players involved in online squads ! Cheats were much anterior to mods btw, some squads started cheating/exploiting at the very beginning of open online il2 events. Want no cheats ? Fly with known pilots only.
Nowadays most online squads have moved to Clod/BOS or simply disbanded, but some still enjoy very much flying either HSFX or other IL2 flavors in events, try to join one and you may find fun again