I, for one, am happy that Flight is less of a hard core simulator. I think it was about time that something like Flight was released on the market, which already is full of semi-hardcore to fully hardcore simulators -- X-Plane, Flight Gear, and of course, good ole' Flight Simulator X (not to mention Lockheed Martin's licensed version of it, Pr3par3d). Sometimes I just want to "pick up and play", and for that purpose, Flight fits the bill nicely.
That said, it certainly would be nice if third-parties could develop content for Flight. I'm guessing Microsoft is blocking third-parties according to this kind of reasoning: If you can get the main product for free, then obviously you're not making money off of it. So, you need a way to make money, so you provide paid content. But if you let third-parties develop content, you run (a very big, I think) risk of not selling your own paid content. So, you block third-parties.
Assuming that's the line of reason they're using, I think the solution (blocking third-parties) isn't the best. Why not have licensing agreements, so that Flight add-ons would be sold via some kind of Flight store, and vendors would be asked to pay a certain amount? Or, have licenses to use the Flight SDK?
I guess the devil would be in the details, and maybe Microsoft isn't confident that Flight will be popular enough to justify the initial cost of setting up such a system complete with licensing agreements and stuff. Or, in the case of licensing the SDK, they don't want to put the effort into getting it ready for market, much less providing support for it to their customers. Anyway, I hope that Microsoft figures out a way to both make the money they want while at the same time providing the product that both novice and expert simmer alike can enjoy (including third-party content).
But all in all, I think Flight is fun, and fills a spot among the various flight games / sims available today. And to that end, I think it will work. But of course, only time will tell ...
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