In the days of James Gilbert the balance was just about right. The editorial style naturally changed with his departure and the mag has gone downhill from there. I have subscribed to it for about 30 years now and used to read it avidly from cover to cover, but now like the other commentator I find that everything of interest takes about 10 minutes. What is the competition though? Popular Flying has now gone monthly but is solely aimed at the homebuilder. Todays Pilot has more ads for cameras than articles about aviation, and Flyer has good and bad months.
I guess the content balance is never going to be right for everybody.