Well...
There's one thing that's definitely true, full real settings is harder than externals allowed and enemy cameras and enemy padlocks and icons.
Flying, shooting and spotting are way harder. The actual advantages and disadvantages of aircraft come to shine in full real in the best way possible.
It's certainly a different experience and somewhat more enjoyable IMO, than the less realistic servers. I used to really like the spitv109 server (full real but I think it allows HSFX history mod for extra content, and graphics but it should be basically same gameplay as vanilla), but nowadays I don't have HSFX 7 installed, so I have to figure out how to get updated on all my game and mod patches.
E.g. why T&B in an aircraft with poor visibility? You can do that with external views allowed and padlock allowed but not really in full real, at least so well. Likewise good visibility like P-51 mustang with its teardrop canopy is really nice.
You can feel happy about surviving sorties and getting points here and there in full real in my opinion. And you can use nice flight paths and tactics to try to sneak into enemy territory and fulfill your missions.
I do think that the aerial war of WW2 would have been rather more different, if the real pilots had stuff that is "semi-realistic settings"
You're basically talking about an F-22 with passive sensors all around your aircraft (external views)
airborne radar (enemy cameras)
enemy padlocks (basically radar warning receiver or radar)