I completely disagree with you.
Tweaking on the in game brightness or TV to see better to me it's like lowering elevator sensitivity while flying a plane, avoiding stalling, or disable the cockpit view when available. It's just a personal setting, definetly not a way of cheating. If the devs wanted a fixed brightness settings they wouldn't allowed you the option, or, like most recent game ( dead space 2 for example ), they would make you set the bright level in-game at the beginning, comparing the slider value with a brightness reference picture.
Feel like flying at 0 brightness? Do it.
Feel like flying full sensitivity? Do it.
Feel like flying cockpit? Do it.
But don't blame other for cheating if the don't fly with your settings. Some people still play on CRT TV, some don't have a full HD plasma tv, i mean... It's your personal decision. It's not the brightness settings that will save your wings against a skilled pilot.
Also, when i fly against an opponent, i always think he's flyig with "no-handicap" and at his maximum TV, joypad controller / sensitivity / cockpit performance, ready to shoot lead on my ass. so NO MERCY

! I personally love flying in cockpit view and sometimes full sensitivity too, but i like fair games so i goes into that options only when previously agreeded with the players. Maybe next time i'll ask about their TV brightness too lol
Also, I feel like the dev added the black out effect just to make the game looks nicer, probably to disturb your sight on darker map ( i can hardly see ad dawn or sunset mission or while flying cloud covered in blackouts) , it's just a nice feature. If they really wanted to 100% blind you on blackouts, they would make it fade to completely black. Or, maybe, blending the enemy plane ( making him progressively transparent ) while fade out. There are several way to achive that kind of effect in 3d games... I wonder why they have not added the same on negative G but only positive.
Of course, those are my opinion. Take it easy and have fun!
