I enjoyed AC6 for what it is, but it's also undeniably a less fun game than the previous entries.

Funnily enough, the situation with AC6 is analogous to another AC acronym'd franchise; Ace Combat. Ace Combat has never been a "simulator" series and it never pretended to be one. But the earlier entries like AC3+AC04 still had gravity and inertia implemented into their flight models. So even though the game was unrealistic, it still made you feel like you were flying fighter jets. The basics of dogfighting like energy conservation and stall management were still things you had to consider while playing even if you had 200+ missiles. Then Ace Combat 5 comes out and streamlines the entire flight model so that you never lose speed, can turn on a dime, and don't have to worry about stalling out. The game is still fun, but it lost the "feel" of flying a real fighter jet and stopped being concerned about making vehicular combat game.