Well, none of those people that know everything about WW1 aerodynamics and planes that don’t even exist nowadays had a chance to fly any of those planes, so whatever they think is as relevant as any other opinion based on biased wishful thinking. Everyone would like their own favorite plane to be better and can find somewhere a story that somewhat supports their ‘vision’ of a plane.
This game is a Sim game, but still a game, and as any other it follows programmed algorithms and rules that programmers can tweak forever, but every time they do, player will find out what plane in game is currently the best and use it. It’s like that in every MP game to this date, even if it’s just 1% difference, it’s still going to be enough to use that plane over any other for most players.
I also do not believe in stat sheets from manufacturer of any product today, let alone war time propaganda ones without proper procedures since even planes from same factory were not all equal back then for sure.
But there are some known records from different sources about relative performance between planes and that is what interest me to be right in the game.
If one plane was known to be faster, then it should be faster in game (like your Albie vs Camel example). If one plane could dive faster without breaking apart then the other, it needs to be in the game, etc…
This way player gets to feel and use strengths and weaknesses relative to opponent aircraft. Exact characteristics are probably never going to be historically correct no matter what 777 guys do, but some important relative ones should for a COMBAT simulator.
But there are many MP maps that force us to fly different planes since Camels and DR1’s are not available. Lately I was mostly in Nieuport 17.C1, Albatros DIII and Halberstadt DII. Enjoying to fly them all.