Is it "awful" though, or is it just not quite as accurate as X-Plane? Because I've seen a far few videos from actual pilots of various aircraft playing Flight Sim 2024, and generally what they say is that while it's not the same as flying the real thing (mostly because of the lack of feedback for things like trim adjustment) it's pretty damn close. Just because that was achieved by writing specific models for each aircraft rather than full fluid dynamics simulation I don't think that makes it awful.

Personally I play a lot of 2020 not because I even care much about perfect flying physics, which I can get over and will never feel like actually flying which happens a lot by feel particularly in vfr. But rather, as extremely cheap avionics and prodecures practice, which 2020 does a mostly good job of if you pretend to be your own controller or use vatsim.

I also have a mod that gets my plane's power curve mostly right which is good enough for most IFR practice.