For starters PR has always been the red-headed stepchild of MG and with Luthier at the helm it's only gotten worse so I guess they don't want to invest more than the bare minimum of time.
Interesting CsThor, we've both been around for a long time - however, my view is a little different: I thought Oleg was usually brilliant in his personal style and PR back in the post-release heyday. Things just deteriorated after 2007...
I don't think this was a company strategy but Oleg's personal style. There was no "conscious thought" behind it, it was more like an instinctual thing since Oleg put too much "blood & sweat" into it. PR-wise Maddox Games was always not particularly creative - we never got more than screenshots and more or less cryptic statements, often less than substantial ones at that. They were never comparable to what Jason does at ROF (which I find most informative and upfront).
Luthier definitely has a more confrontational style than Oleg had. I personally don't think thats a bad thing, although I preferred Oleg's style.
Jason bought the ROF franchise from the Russian developers and can communicate in English much better than the COD developers. Usually developments on a shoe string budget don't get into advertising, and advertising such an incomplete product would probably not be the best strategy at the moment. The original Il-2 didn't advertise either, but eventually cornered the WW2 combat flight sim market, and most of the market bought COD on reputation alone.
I can definitely see the new series start a serious advertising campaign in five to ten years, when they have developed a combined forces sim that they could market to a much larger audience, that might make the advertising costs worth while.
