yeah, if we talk about graphics, the of course, but if we talk about enjoyment - both playing modding, EAW has no concurent. I've played Il-2, BoB, CFS, they're good. But EAW is the most realistic sim, you can modify EVERYTHING (Yeah!) there, you can battle in airbattles with some 400+ aircraft, you can mod it, you have all campaigns from 1930 Spanish Civil War with all those biplanes, then all-covered WWII (Poland, Attack in the West, France, Dunkirk, BoB, European Theatre of Operations 1940-45, Dieppe, Normandy, Pacific, Malta, Med, Desert Air War, Russia, China, Burma.....) to Israeli Air War, Cold War in Europe, Korea...
Simply everything. And now we've developed so called high-resolution skin plane models, which are imho better then those from Il-2...
And since we go more and more far every day, it's really like entering the matrix. Did you played it? I know you've named it correctly.