Back to original question: Is interest in ROF just about dead? I think this thread itself proves it is not (almost 200 posts and almost 6000 views)
I have viewed this thread about once or twice a day since it started, just like several others I would assume. I read the forums when I am at work, it's entertaining, does that mean RoF is alive for me? No. I haven't flown it in months.
All this thread proves is that people love their simulations and like talking about them (good or bad). The point of this thread was to start a debate/argument, it did that and with everyone making their points, jabs, and asides it's length builds quickly.
I think i quite agree with this. I was very interested in this sim ever since it was called knights of the sky. As release was drawing closer and we got the well-known debates about the connectivity requirements and the distribution model (add-on pricing is ok, i just think you need bundled packs instead of just single add-ons to ensure the online community has a common content base to start from), i found i had some strong disagreements with the way they were doing things.
At that point i was still very much interested, i was in fact battling it out on these forums with other people, in the hope that the opposing viewpoint would be heard and neoqb would take it into account, maybe tweaking their game a bit to accomodate us as well. Why? Simply because i was interested enough to want this game reach a level that would be acceptable to me, so that i would get it and fly it. Then came the initial technical issues that, to be fair, every flight sim has. As more people jumped in and exposure was getting wider, there is now a pretty good indication of what's good and what's wrong with this sim for everyone to make a decision.
Strangely enough that was more or less the point in time where my interest started to fade, especially after trying the demo and seeing first hand what all the fuss was about. From my personal perspective, it wasn't so much an issue of what was wrong or right with the sim. It was mostly a case of realising the amount of time it will take for this sim to reach a standard i would find acceptable. Maybe neoqb are working slow, or maybe they are working their butts off but have a lot to fix since they needed to release early, or maybe they even made some design flaws early on that are now difficult to reverse. That is not what concerns me though, what i care about is that by the time this sim is something i'd want to have, Oleg's battle of Britain might be just around the corner.
I stopped engaging in rhetoric battles with the die-hard fans of the sim, because i reached a point of resignation, that's all. Now i might check the forums once a week (while i check reviews, SoW:BoB and IL2 forums almost daily here on SimHQ and on the official 1c forums), but i don't really reply that much. I have come to realize that this game is what it is, for better or worse, and trying to voice concerns in an effort to steer it to the right direction is like throwing oneself onto a brick wall.
One even has help, since there are people that willingnly push others or even throw themselves on the wall to set an example, because apparently the way to fix what's wrong is not talk too much about it and keep going until the wall breaks.
It's very WWI like, it reminds me of marshall Haig's reasoning behind the way much of the war was handled, but if that was any indication i'd say that blind perseverance, unwavering allegiance and brute force alone can't always fix things, or can't fix them in the optimal manner as far as timeframe and cost are concerned. Sometimes it's better to go round or over the wall, or even get some tools and punch a hole in the wall in an efficient manner, but when the wall has been so much advertised as the pinnacle of achievement in a certain field of software engineering its advocates don't want to see it crumble overnight, because it will drag their rhetoric down with it. Just keep head-butting it, it will give in sometime and maybe by that point everyone will have forgotten how fond some were of the wall.
Until and if it becomes something else that suits me, i'll let the guys who enjoy it get on with their flying and sit this one out, as i'm pretty much convinced that RoF either doesn't want or isn't capable of winning my purchase in the short-term future. Sure, i'm still somewhat interested in it, i just won't hold my breath or go to the trouble of explaining why it won't sell much anymore. Let the die-hards enjoy it and shoulder its development and if it survives that's just fine, if not, oh well. They had their chance with me and missed it, if the time comes for a second chance they'll have it, unless i'm too busy flying something else at that point in time.
It would be accurate to make a distinction and say that while i'm still interested in seeing where it goes, i don't actually care anymore. Now that i think of it, maybe that should be the real question to ask in this thread.
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Ok, maybe I was out of line, I just get sick of the internet Chuck Norris types who have apparently killed 25 Iraqis with their bare hands, and like to re-enact it on their computers. Yawn...Ok. 
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