Hi Trist, I can only try to add to Kestrel's excellent response.
1) My reply re rudders pedals same as Kestrel's. I have the CH non-pro Pedals which work very well, but are, as Kestrel says, much too close together. I find myself slipping my feet out of them on longer flights when I've trimmed out because they get uncomfortable -- not good if you get bounced. I ditched my old RCS pedals because I got tired of cleaning/replacing the spiky pots so frequently. They were comfortable, though.
2) re TrackIR: same response as Kestrel's. Went from v3 ---> v5; good move. Got the Track Clip Pro but it IS flimsy, and adds an extra wire to your headgear. I got it to replace my springclip which frequently launched itself off my hat right across the room. Killed two housecats with it.
3) SLI is not optimized for CoD. The game runs smoother with my single 560 Ti than two of them together. The card of choice at present seems to be the 580 with 3 gigs of VRAM. Nvidia will no doubt soon launch its answer to AMD's new 7000-series card, though.
4) CoD's interface sucks. The old IL2 interface was no screamin' fury either. Re medals and stuff: no deal in CoD. Best to join an online squadron that have ranks and metals independently set up. Over at the ATAG forum we have a section where online squadrons are welcome to introduce themselves and recruit. Might be worth a look.
5) Dynamic weather is still a dream just a patch away for us at CoD!
Clouds are a frame killer; I've tried 'em in the Full Mission Builder and found heavy cumulus alone will drag my frame rates right down. It's gotta be fixed.
Hope to see you online soon!
EDIT: Almost forgot! Statistics! When you fly the ATAG server you automatically get stats generated on a whole whack of vitals: kills (air & ground separately), deaths, # of times you spawned, etc etc. you can view these anytime over at the ATAG Forum and they get updated very quickly. We have ATAG_Colander, our statistician extraordinaire, to thank for this. It's a WIP and gradually evolving.