Hengist, don't get me wrong but these are my oppinions/answers to your questions:
Originally posted by Hengist:
So a good story is more important than depicting a believable flight model?
In a Combat Flight Simulation a "story" (or a war/conflict/campaign) is at least as important as beliavable flight models (sometimes even more). The story is great part of the "immersiveness" in a combat flight sim and an excelent story can greatly help the player in order to put himself in the shoes of a real pilot. But of course that believable fligth models are also very important for this. So if the sim has a good story but bad FM than the player could probably reach the following conclusion "In this game, I don't fell like I'm flying a real aircraft". Or if the game has good FMs but a bad story the player could reach the conclusion that this game "Is boring and/or a crap".
Anyway, this is just to say that both the "story element" and the "FMs" are very important for a combat flight sim.
So to be a real sim, it's got to have a campaign, or it's not a sim? What are we simulating here, a plane or a campaign?
Well, basically the reply that I posted above applies here too.
Regarding to your question "What are we simulating here, a plane or a campaign?", IMO we should be trying to simulate the pilot (or pilots) itself. And a real pilot not only lives the "war" inside the cockpit but outside of it also and here's where the campaign factor comes in -> A good campaign allows the player to "live" or simulate the war outside the cockpit. Keep in mind that wars don't stop when pilots land their aircraft and get out of the cockpit.
Also IMO a good simulation of the pilot have more chances to bring more new player (thru the immersive factor) than a simulation that "only models the aircraft".
My point is, that I've already stated the following... "Over G Fighters is the equivalent, in terms of complexity, of the Strike Fighters series on PC". What switches are there, exactly, that you can throw in Strike Fighters?
Hengist, I think you should look more closely to the Strike Fighters series control assignment menus. Here are a "very few" example of "switches" that the SF series have (and I'll exclude the X/Y/Rudder axis and Throttle):
-> Flaps up
-> Flaps down
-> Gear up/down
-> Change Radar mode
-> Radar On/Of
-> Change Radar range
-> Change Radar Target
-> Select Radar target
-> Next Air-to-Air Weapon
-> Previous Air-to-Air Weapon
-> Next Air-to-Ground Weapon
-> Previous Air-to-Ground Weapon
-> Next Weapon Ripple quantity
-> Previous " " "
-> Next Weapon Ripple distance
-> Previous " " "
-> Eject
-> Auto-pilot
-> Auto-pilot Wing Leveler
-> Select nearest visual enemy target
-> Select visual target in front of you
-> Cicle visual ground target
-> Time Acceleration
-> Time Skip
And these are only a very few example of the SF series commands which will depleat by a very large margin the controls available in any console gamepad.
SF series can have simplified radar/avionics modeling in how they operate but this doesn't mean that the number of controls in these sims are small.
Well, my 2 cents...