Sorry for the double post but Krigl posted this.
In six months with several new payware add-ons (and possibly freeware too) in development FSX is going to look amazing! But still the lack of variety in freeware add-ons is going to hold it back in comparison to FS9, at least for screenshot purposes. It just makes me think that without the freeware scene, what is FS?
Right now I see that FSX killed freeware. Modeling something to FSX standard is nothing short of impossible, even for some great FS9 modelers. Since Flight Simulator X came out about a year ago now, Flight Simulator X aircraft, from the shareware folks that built the Flight Simulator X community has dropped off to nearly zero.
There's good reason for it - the hundreds of hours it takes to produce a quality aircraft is just too much for most guys to take on. There's also the additional expertise that is required now, not just for modeling the aircraft in a sophisticated and expensive gMax program, but doing the behind-the-scenes programming as well.
For what reward? Being free-ware, there is no monetary reward, certainly, only the knowledge that maybe your project was the most downloaded file on a major player like AVSIM or Simviation. That's not enough, obviously for most guys. Repaints aren