I played IL2 (actually my face is used for one of the pilots and one of the pilot voices in Pacific Fighters lol), and the physics model and flight engine annoyed me. For one, it doesn't accurately model high altitude performance degradation. The degradation isn't gradual, and all of a sudden you hit the altitude ceiling. AI planes were blatant cheaters, which killed the fun of the game. I'd have Focke-Wolf 190s outturning me in my La-7 at low speed, which annoyed the crap out of me. Stalling characteristics were all cookie-cutter too--they all snap stalled at the threshold in the same exact way.
For the truly hardcore, there's a freeware sim community called Targetware that made their own online sim. Not sure if many ppl are online anymore, but the flight modeling and attention to detail is superb. So hard to find screens of the game. Here are two.
