I’m far from being an expert in air traffic control, but I’ll admit I’m a bit of an oddball—to be honest, I got fed up with early access games ages ago, so I’m still using Pilot2ATC; it’s not perfect, but it works well enough for me.

BeyondATC is certainly interesting with quite a bit of promise, but it has issues as of 1.8.8EA.

I've had Center "vector" me to pick up the ILS... 58nm north of the airport at FL225. Yes, Center.

AI traffic sounds plenty busy on the radio, but often no traffic shows on the BATC map.

Random AI traffic appears at my alt on a reciprocal heading within 10nm, forcing my AP to maneuver for a TCAS RA. AI traffic do not maneuver at all. Center likewise fails to issue an advisory/course directive. Traffic within 40nm of the airport seems to behave as it should.

During push/start I had Ground tell me I committed a pilot deviation and needed to copy a number. I told it "Ground cleared push and start face East, WHAT deviation?" Got a "ding" of approval in reply. Yes, I was facing East.

Taxi instructions are getting better, but still go stupid often enough to make it frustrating. Ground likewise has issues with runway exit taxi calls. "United 2111 off on Golf, request taxi gate 8 Bravo" gets me a reply to either request a taxi destination or specify a gate.

Center and Approach step you down in the US (I have an air band radio and listen to KSEA/KBFI and SEA Center) yet BATC doesn't give step down instructions at all. I am frequently dumped by Center to an altitude miles below me, or admonished by Center/Approach for not maintaining assigned altitude because I'm flying the STAR and BATC duffed the altitude step-down.

It's funny when GA tail numbers I know - and in a few cases have flown IRL - call for IFR clearance because BATC assigned that tail number to an airliner as a "callsign." Trust me, a C172H isn't getting near FL250.

That kind of late vectoring is exactly the part that keeps me cautious with BATC for IFR. The voices and the radio atmosphere are nice, but for me the basic sequencing and separation still matter more than how busy the frequency sounds. I can live with an occasional odd taxi instruction, but traffic appearing head-on without ATC reacting would pull me out of it pretty quickly.

That's why I still tend to use FSHud for my offline IFR flights. Less flashy maybe, but the vectoring and separation behavior is the part I trust more right now. If BATC gets the enroute side as reliable as the airport-area side seems to be getting, then it becomes a much harder choice.