Hey Volksieg! Long time no speak.
I agree with the above statement, they seemed to reduce calculations aswell in the game engine to help net code and online stability... Many times we have been told that "nothing" has been turned off on the graphics side, how about all the early morning fog? debris from planes being reduced? fire effects being reduced? ect... we could all see it.
One of the major drawbacks is the cockpits with 30+ textures, apparently it takes a year for each one to be developed? How i dont know, I have seen amazing cockpits produced in weeks to months in other titles by artists i know personally. If you turn your cockpit off when flying over london just see what it does to your FPS... Doubles mine at least.
777 studios will be making a very different game

, arcade in comparison.
To answer your question, yes details have been removed.