From my point of view, a lot of the fuss made about the air, which makes air players somewhat discontent boils down to a couple of issues:
1) Balance efforts.
2) Inconsistent application of rules.
3) Opposing HC and TA approach and tone of voice.
On (1):
In our efforts to create a balanced air situation so one army's ground isn't getting pounded all the time, we've created a situation where
-Players are sometimes not allowed to play a certain role which they want to play, because they are too good.
-Opposing armies are expected to care about and accommodate to the opposing side's situation. While we are, generally, all friends here, and we try to play a gentlemanly game, this slows down the battle day, and sometimes doesn't work out at all because it's natural to want to win and to hold some edge over the opposition.
-To quote from someone else in another forum
I get the sense that people just want to show up and win. As it's obviously impossible to just show up and win unless the other guy is at or below your skill level and taking the same approach, bitching to try to "balance" things is a the only way to continue to just show up and have a chance to win.
The opposite attitude, that a loss indicates a need to improve personally, and motivation to do so, is now called being a "competi-cunt". I know that term originated with a specific target in mind, but once you loose a meme it evolves; I've heard it applied quite broadly as of late.
The coping mechanism at work here is obvious: if you lose to someone who tries harder, simply cast trying-hard as being a bad thing so as to not lose face. But it's poisonous in the long run.
This applies to balance in a broad sense but also to air balance.
In my opinion,
we should move back to a competitive draft system and let things play out. The other army's problems are their problems and your problems are yours. If you've drafted a weaker air force, adapt your flying techniques and use ground-based means to assist in the air battle. If your ground forces are weaker, train more, and improve your tactics.
2 & 3) I'll use the vehicle stealing rule as an example, since it seems to be the popular case study as of late. It seems to me that this is really only a problem with the helicopters on Sharqi. Mobile artilleries get stolen quite frequently on armored shield maps. When this happens, it gets driven back to the stealing team's side of the map, usually near their "gimme flag" or just outside the uncap. Someone gets ordered to try and kill it so they can get it back. Nobody bitches. Tanks/tank destroyers get stolen from time to time on battle days and in the black ops tank superiority. Usually, the stolen tank is brought to the rear and shells things from a distance. Again, nobody bitches. Even when jets are stolen (has happened in the past. For example, when a jet dropper fails to properly crash the jet), nobody bitches. But when a helicopter is stolen on Sharqi, the following situation unravels.
15s after Team A steals Team B's heli, Team A is repairing the stolen helicopter and probably switching pilots.
30s after Team A steals Team B's heli, Team A is now flying the stolen helicopter, getting in to provide close air support and ECMing and bugging out when they get a stinger launched at them. From the crew's perspective, they have a fair chance of getting killed. Suddenly, the TAs pass on "just a 'friendly' reminder, that the helicopter needs to have a fair chance of getting destroyed." But there's a sense of urgency in the TA's voice and a bit of a bitter edge to it, probably because they have just received an earful from Team B's HC. So Team A's HC passes along the reminder over channel commander.
50s after Team A steals Team B's heli, Team A is flying the chopper somewhat more aggressively, facing constant lock-on tones, with rpgs flying past their windows like this is Somalia. Team A's HC hears the TAs once again, but this time, the TA's voice is raised, and they get a serious warning about not using the stolen vehicle per the fair play rules. Since the HC members are busy with the fight on ground, they don't know exactly what is being done with the stolen chopper, but they've seen it buzz by from the ground once or twice. Regardless, they duly pass down the warning to the helicopter crew, who is by now, also quite frazzled and irritated.
The forums a week later.
To me, the response to this situation is inconsistent with the response to other stolen vehicles. Granted, this campaign's TAs responded in a much calmer manner than previous TA groups. However, there is still room for improvement in the tone that they take with air players and officers when handling these situations.