"John Doe" wrote in message
...
vastly increasing the development time and cost,

What part of $50,000,000,000 don't you understand?

WARNING: BASIC ECONOMICS LESSON FOLLOWS

Just because they can afford to do it doesn't mean they will. The fact of
the matter is, the vast majority of the FS customer base DOES NOT CARE about
having the exact buildings in their exact locations. Outside of their
immediate area, it's not likely they're going to know what every single
house looks like anyway, so why bother? Certainly, they have the capability
to do it--but the potential increase in sales doesn't offset the expense.
Consider, too, the additional processing power that would be required for
all of this. Few people have systems that can handle FS9 as it is; what do
you think they'll do when every single house, blade of grass, and stalk of
corn is modelled?

Finally, remember too that there are quite a few who don't give a damn about
the eye candy--they just want the physics of flying modelled as
realistically as possible and as long as they can read the gauges they don't
care how detailed the rest of the graphics are.

--
Kurt Weber