So I've been experimenting with with settings to make enemy fighters visible at dogfighting range, and I've finally made some headway...
I turned off Anisotropic filtering. Then I set my resolution from 1980 x 1080 to 1600 x 900. Now I can fly and fight just about anything within 3+ miles without labels.
Bear in mind this is just on my PC with a 22" monitor. No VR yet. I use my TM 1600 hat switch to move my view around and it works pretty well that way. Also set a rocker on my throttle to "squint" or zoom in/zoom out.
Gotta say I'm enjoying the game SO much more now!