I go back to Bruce Artwick/Sublogic on the Commodore 64 then A320 and ATP and on to MSFS. As each version of the latter was released I had no hesitation in moving on.
By the time FS2004 arrived I had already spent years putting together a longed-for flight deck with the keyboard redundant and replaced by switches and levers, yoke, pedals, autopilot, radios, etc. FS2004 was the icing on the cake.
For me, flying on one screen with the panel taking up half of it had long since become a no-no and I’d never go back to that. Having the big screen (plus large Fresnel lens) for outside view with the home-made instrument panels (FS Panel Studio) on extra screens below was the only way to go.
Hundreds of addons (Scenery, Mesh, FS Nav, FSMeteo/Active Sky, World of AI, etc, etc) have added huge extra enjoyment.
Like everyone else I was looking forward to the new version, FSX. Unfortunately, it proved to be no more than a stutter-fest – even on Microsoft’s own computers on their stand at a flightsim show in the UK. I never bought into it and, as well as that, MS itself gave up on it and, later on, further embarrassed itself with Flight.
I’ve no interest in P3D or XPlane. As time went by I built faster flight sim PC's a few times but still running on Windows XP Pro SP3. At each upgrade I just imaged the existing drive and restored it to a new HDD or subsequently, SSD. It runs flawlessly every time with all sliders to the right. It’s a boot up, open the flight deck door and go fly situation. No messing about with settings and with smooth flight every time.
So, to answer Skywatcher12.
If the new MSFS can do all that for me I could be in but I have grave doubts about that.