Why is "play BoS" the default reaction to "War Thunder is (x)"? Battle of Stalingrad is incredibly limited in scope, has a far more expensive pricing model (somehow), has as compromised a development as War Thunder, and is being developed in place of a proper IL-2 sequel.
People shouldn't justify bad game development simply because there's nothing better that's been made in the modern era. All anyone wants is IL-2 with a modern engine. That's it. DCS is as close to a modern Falcon 4.0 as we have and is widely held in high regard; that people should want the modern equivalent of IL-2 isn't surprising.
We should expect more from our developers, and anyone who justifies the f2p/p2w price model of many modern games is perpetuating a market that treats its customers with complete disdain. The developers make more money off a select few fat wallets and an indiscriminate spending attitude. It also incentivises a continuation of compromised development ideals (e.g. valuing monetiseable items instead of actual, quality content). Further, it locks users into a walled garden, one where modders can't contribute or expand upon the base game, often exceeding the original content in quality and scope.
There's a reason why games like Star Trek Online Tribes Ascend and every SOE game churn out an excessive amount of ships and weapons that are more powerful than their free counterparts. If the purchasable items weren't even the slightest bit unbalanced then no one would buy them. LOTRO, The Secret World, SWTOR, TF2, LoL, Guild Wars 2, et al have a far better and less compromised development and marketing model: either give the game away or sell it under a buy once policy and then charge people for cosmetics. It cultivates a far less toxic relationship. Eve is the pinnacle of a subscription based MMO: you can buy in-game money with real money, but all that allows you to do is skip tedious income building, and you can also eventually pay your subscription with in-game income. Even Elite Dangerous's "buy once" model is superior, wherein you can further skip tedious income building if you should so choose, but you can't buy your way into a ship that is superior to free counterparts.
f2p business models incentivise all of the worst habits of game development. This has been demonstrated time and again by Gaijin. They don't care about balance any more than they care about historical accuracy, they care about making as much money as possible. SOE did the exact same thing with Planetside 2. Balance patches aren't about balance, they're about pandering to a different demographic, on a ping pong basis. It generates controversy and tribalism, and causes indiscriminate buyers to seek out new ways to be on top. That Gaijin trickle out new planes over time is no surprise, as it generates a constant stream of always unbalanced purchaseables for those same buyers. Or do you think it takes five months to properly design a single new plane line? A single IL-2 modder could develop a plane from scratch, with a historically accurate damage and flight model, in mere weeks, if not less.
It's a bullshit system. Suggesting that people play BoS instead only perpetuates it. We'd have had a real successor to IL-2 by now if people were more discriminate with their money.