I think the market analysis for EA shows that the market potential for flight sims, even if they are somewhat casual, isn't anywhere to the truckloads of money that they can make with BF3 ... which happens to be what the shareholders of the corporate stock seem to expect. An EA executive once told me that they "aren't in the games business, but in the money making business".
I don't know what could be more telling.

I'm sure, one day something like it will come along. But I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

It was a really big hit actually IIRC. Like Crysis it made lots of people upgrade their systems just to be able to play it. But that was almost 18 years ago. The last time EA published a flight sim was a decade ago when they closed Origin for good. The problem with flightsims is that they are seen as a niche catering to grognards and when viewed against Modern Warfare 2 making over a billion dollars the flightsim is going to lose every time.

Meanwhile during this decade Ubisoft has published the IL-2 series, AAA console flight games like Blazing Angels 1&2, HAWX 1&2, the entire Silent Hunter series (now there's a niche genre). So if any big publisher is going to develop a AAA Strike Commander analogue it would probably be them.

Considering all they've done with the MUCH larger Wing Cmdr franchise (so large it had a film let alone half a dozen major titles) is release a crappy little XBLA top-down scroller shooter, I'm not surprised Strike Cmdr is just growing weeds.
Oh, and EECH is far from complex. EECH is to Black Shark like the A-10 in LOMAC is to the DCS A-10.



The Jedi Master

Here we go again. You have to understand that the ED titles are at the very extreme end of complexity. EECH is very complex if you compare it to a game like Apache Air Assault or Ace Combat. As is LOMAC. So it will not be a good entry-level sim, which needs to "realistic" but with simplified mechanics. Strike Fighters is a good example of getting the formula almost right, even if it too is almost too complex to appeal to someone completely new to flight games.

Less clicks/effort to update EECH than BF3.

j/k

I think.

Ace Combat has zero complexity. There's nothing to learn. You could replace all the planes with spaceships and the game wouldn't be any different. Compared to Ace Combat, solitaire has more complexity.



The Jedi Master

And because it has no complexity, anyone can pick it up and have fun with it right away. Flight games (and that includes DCS as well) are fundamentally about giving us the ability to pretend we're fighter pilots and have fun doing so. What is so difficult to understand about this? To the casual user, too much complexity is a bad thing. That's why I said even SF is too complex for the casual user. The entry-level sim needs to be as realistic as possible while being no more complex than popular RPG's such as Skyrim. And it needs to look cool, which means a fairly linear campaign with impressive set-pieces.

Strike Commander was great in that it created a challenge for the player, yet it didn't take a fat manual to memorize. It shouldn't be so easy as to be effectively a side-scrolling arcade shoot em up. But I was pretty proud when I managed to land the F-16 safely in SC, and I still have a few memories about the more difficult dogfights (or the single one tank kill that I achieved with the cannon).

SC still passed as a simulation, even if it was definitely not one of highest fidelity. But it created a bizarre world of freelance mercenary fighter squadrons where you also had to somehow manage the finances. That helped to increase the fun, because missiles and smart bombs were a lot more expensive, which created an incentive to do without AMRAAMs whenever possible, and to throw Mk82 bombs which created a bit of a skill challenge to actually hit a target.
Strike Commander was immense fun for someone like me who wasn't so deeply interested in flight simulations but who still didn't want to have a totally dumbed down flight model. It was simplified, but in a clever way. Options screens cannot and will not achieve the same effect. It was a conscious game design decision to bring the player into dogfight situations where the F-16 was most fun to fly even though modern avionics try everything to avoid dogfights in the first place. I want stalls, I want some difficulty in flight maneuvers. What I don't want, as a casual flight simmer, are more than two or three radar modes to manage, 20 minutes of starting up the engine and taxiing, and shooting blips on a radar screen without actually ever seeing the target. At the same time I want a jet, and not a prop machine, and I want some sort of a storyline that keeps me engaged. Wingmen with different personalities to choose from.

The formula isn't too hard, actually. The problem is that the current developers and the current fans have painted themselves into the corner of a complexity trap. Every new flight sim will get measured by the number of options and the fine detail of flight simulations. That's fine for you experts, but it locks the door for everybody who might develop a deeper interest, if only there was something simpler and more fun to invite him into the scene in the first place.

Ssnake, based from what you wrote about casual flightsim above, I think you'd love Crimson Skies so much. Anyone still remember that one? Well, the planes ain't based on RL planes at all, but they still have wings..easy to fly, but still harder than ace combat. Good story and characters. Not to mention you can design new planes, too. I also love how the plane shakes when I fire the cannons. And the thrill of making precision approach to dock with the zeppelin. Imagine if they remake this game with today's graphics..

CS was an excellent title. IIRC it was a decent hit as well.