Mouse controls do make things easy. But then again its needed since alot of people don't own a joystick. Also if you advance to full real battles, you pretty much have to use a joystick. By the way, I play almost all arcade battles. I tried historical, and while I found it fun, the time it takes to get to the action just isn't worth it for me.
For arcade battles, the Russians definately have the low tier advantage. The tier 0s and 1s put out more than twice the firepower than the other nations, and 3 of the planes can carry rockets. They also have the advantage in tiers 2-3 with the two available Laggs which both have 20mm canons. The light bombers are also maneuverable and carry enough bombs to take out lines of tanks in one pass if you have decent aim.
At the higher tiers the Russians start to get out classed from other nations. The American Airacobras and king cobras are on par, if not better than the Russian Yaks. The british with the tier 5 and 6 beaufighters mean death to any plane that is unlucky enough to get in thier sights with 4 20mms and 4-6 50 cals. Not to mention the tier 6 british spitfire is when they get 2 20mm cannons. So not only do the spits out maneuver anything else, at tier 6 they get the firepower to annihilate your plane in 1-2 bursts.
The Germans seem to not really come into thier prime till tier 7+. The lower tiers planes are quite lacking.
I've been playing for maybe a month and a half and the grind isn't that bad. I"m already tier 14 with the russians, and 7-9 with the other nations, except for the japanese that I haven't played at all (I find they just dont' have a well rounded selection of planes). I also like the fact that I switch back to lower tier planes with my crews at no cost (so I can play with friends that just picked up the game).
The other good things, unlike WoT is that tiers dont' matter nearly as much, if really at all. Lower tiers can still take out higher tiers planes. Hell I accidently joined a tier 8-9 match with my 0-1 russian planes (I didn't hear my brother tell me we were changing tiers before I clicked battle). I ended up getting 7 kills with my zhuckosvy bi-plane (its amazing that people will try to get in a turn battle with a biplane that easily out turns the higher tier planes).
last note (going to feed the troll): I played WoWP for the gold for that one week a few months ago. It was work to get the 200 games played to say the least. WT is a better game without a doubt in my mind. Also I find the "garage" battles a huge success in my mind. As I usually play mostly in a squad, and unlike WoT, I don't have to worry about dying, and then sitting and waiting for my squad mates to die so we can start another match. Its alot more action, and alot less stress.