[whatnot]

Here's one idea of an 'achievement' model that would have a historical context, adjust your mindset to a more realistic approach and give out some prestige from success:

When you fly on full-real server, score a confirmed kill and make it back to base you'd get a kill marking to your fuselage. The markings would pile up until you get killed and restart from zero after that.

Same for bombers in terms of bomb markings that reflect to the payload dropped close enough to the target zone.

And since it's such harsh mechanism with a sudden death that resets the counter there could be something to indicate your 'records' of the past.

Maybe it could be utilized somehow in off-line too as long as the kill markings are kept in a level that you can't ramp-up your 'stats' in beginner level with invulnerability turned on.

I'm all for the sim-approach for the title and love CEM and everything, but I wouldn't mind have a scoring system like that which doesn't play too big of a role and jump into your face on every screen.