I feel ya. I stopped for a long time, but I get the urge to fly some pistons every now and again. The latest update has really upped the Ai to annoyingly high levels. It seems they swapped the tail gunners for pilots. I've had IL2 since the beginning and have seen many awesome additions, and some terrible mistakes, but I'm loyal.
Since the demise of Jane's USAF and before SF1, I had to have something online, and there was only IL2. I learned a lot about the planes from online guys. I'm still learning how to fly the things.
DCS P-51 vs FW-190, I get smoked, can't maintain speed, altitude, he just kills me over and over. It's kinda the same in IL2, P-51 I end up stalling and that's it.
I've tried smooth controls (smoked), aggressive (stalled), manual (overheat), auto (no control). SF2 rocks, but I like to have more options.
Anyway, thanks for bringing it up so I could vent too.