Yes, they existed. But certainly wasn't as big or common a thing before avatar, you're missing my larger point on a detail.
Yeah, the Strike Fighters 2 line is phenomenal. The whole series got a bad rap at the start with the walmart fiasco, but like CFS3, continual mod development, and unlike CFS3 continued developer support. I still don't think prop planes fly as well as jets, but prior to AVHistory completely disappearing, they were quite happy with the results they were getting in SF2.
And I'm not the type to thumb through a 400 page manual, hence why I never bother with the study sims like Falcon 4. I want realistic performance from planes and weapons systems. I don't need every fine detail of cockpit climate control.
CFS3, IL2 and SF2's level of fidelity accomplishes this quite well without going overboard on controls and procedures that are critical to know in order to get a plane off the ground, much less function in combat. And I think it would not be too much to handle coming from Any of these newer semi-sims.