It seems downright idiotic that pilots would fly into overcast without any sort of artificial horizon, in this day and age. on my second and third missions, the flight lead thought it'd be a great idea to fly right into the thick overcast, where I promptly lost sight of the lead, and went into a spin. Were pilots that wreckless to try this in WWI era aircraft? I would tend to think they'd fly below the overcast.

Also, (and this is the second time in 3 missions) that as soon as we take off, the flight lead hauls after some two-seater that's 2-3000 ft above us, and whom we have NO chance of catching, but the flight lead seems content to chase this guy till the ends of the earth.

Are these known issues that are on the table to be fixed?

Yes known limitations for ROF and yes, they are on the roadmap to be resolved - check the ROF site and search for Jasons posts and you find comments on it.

Part of the comments from Jason AI work is here but it's not limited to what he has said in tha blog post, its just going to take time

http://riseofflight.com/Blogs/post/2011/10/14/Aircraft-Sale-Development-Update-and-PC-Pilot-Disk!.aspx

Yes, AI flight leaders are a problem sometimes..
They shoot off after two seaters that are far above you, and attack balloons when not part of the mission brief as well..
You can choose to follow the flight lead of course.. he will always turn back to the original heading at some stage.
Or you can follow your flight route and go it alone. (I used to usualy meet up with the rest of the flight during the mission anyway)..
Or just lead every flight yourself if you have gained enough rank.
As to flying through clouds without improved avionics.. I've read reports of pilots that just would not fly into clouds, however, I've also read reports and first hand accounts where squadrons had a policy of training all pilots to successfully operate in clouds, in fact it was a must.. so flying in clouds is not that way out actualy..

To follow your AI flight leader into overcast, make sure your autopilot is active in your "reality settings" and simply hit A and then deactivate when you clear the clouds.

It isn't perfect, but a good enough workaround for now.

What bugs me are those "holes" through the overcast clouds that you can see the terrain down below. Try to use one to get down, you get complete white out...