Definitely agree. A big part of the ArmA experience is the change of pacing during a mission. It is the only game where you spend significant amount of time in transit, or waiting.

This is a good thing as it adds to the mission story with you have frantic parts and relaxed parts. In the relaxed part it is nice to look around or turn out etc.

There is a functional aspect to this as well as you indicate nicely. Counting crew members, assessing damage, overwatching your surroundings etc.

Exactly, it is what I was discussing with the pilot while we were on station is that a large amount of immersion is completely lost as I either need to sit in the co-pilot or a passenger seat to get any sort of freedom.

ARMA 2's worked fine albeit you could see that you did not actually have your hands on the weaponry, that really doesn't bother me and considering how the ARMA series does animations with legs and body being independant they could just use the moving hands from the FIA Offroad .50cal if they really are afraid of people complaining.

Can this be closed the issue has been resolved.