Unless things have changed, there's a strong feeling that it causes stutters/lag. One additional problem is that the stock skins get overlooked of skin dowlnload is off and you always get the yellow nose. Devs know.

I suppose one way to be sure is to run a special session with skins on and see what happens but for now I'd prefer them to be off.

Damn right you do - that yellow nose is hugely helpful!

Completly wrong attitude, it should more be like "Here, see me and and be afraid, be very afraid." :D

I don't think they are too scared when they see me bumbling around the sky...

Lets just say this. With skins on you're frozen in mid air (feels like you're about to launcher crash) more than you're actually unfrozen. It's a mess. Granted it all depends on how many players are on the server, etc.. But imagine if every single player spawn caused a 1-3 second stutter on your end? Multiply that by how many players and how many spawns in a minute and you'll see just how bad it is.

We tried turning them back on a few weeks after the latest patch came out, and I'd almost forgotten just how bad it is with them turned on. Trust me, I can't wait till we can use all those skins as well.

It's just as easy for you. All you have to do is NOT see a yellow nose. There's no advantage.

I don't know about that, I fly both sides and find it much easier to spot the blues due to the yellow nose!

I understand what your saying but just from my experience I find it easier... when flying blue you have to worry about what the target is... spit, hurri, or a bomber.... for red its.. speck of yellow and you instantly know its a 109.

What about historical correctness?

What about it? What we are doing now online is hardly historic anyway.
Not every 109 squadron had yellow noses in 1940. If there is a way of having skins without causing problems then it would be great to see them online. Apparently it is not currently possible.
I can only hope that one day the devs will go down the 'skinpack' route that 777 uses.

I hope they don't go down the ROF path. One of the greatest things about the IL2 series is all the options that we have to control virtually everything (like view distance etc.) I wouldn't want anyone other than the server provider allowing what skins are deemed usable or not. But the biggest thing with ROF skins are only 5 of em can be viewed at once. That means when you have 5 drawn planes in your FOV (meaning the LOD is big enough to actually draw the plane) the 6th plane or any thereafter starts flickering like crazy as only the closest 5 planes will have custom skins. So basically as you turn your head to scan a sky full of cons or as planes get further away (saying a plane that has it's skin drawn moves away so another plane is closer) that skin jumps to a default skin while the closer plane jumps to having a custom skin. It just ruins it for me.

So just imagine getting a big formation of bombers up (say 20 of em) and as you looked around skins would be popping on/off all the time. That sort of thing kinda kills the atmosphere to me. But I have faith that the skin issue, like many others, will be implemented/fixed in all due time anyhow.