I think it would be better if the voice command system would be laid out in a radial pattern rather than blocks in rows. It would make finding particular commands a lot easier and faster, also I think 'I need back up' and 'requesting a pickup' should be in the main commo menu and not the squad one.

You're not HappyFunball, spent several hours myself trying to get BF2 to recoginse my damn mic, there's a couple of reasons it might not be working for you. Is it a usb mic? If it is I think you're pretty much buggered I've seen a alot of threads about usb mics not working with BF2 not sure if there is a solution for that.

My problem was my OS, I have vista and the mic was muted in the speaker properties section by default(dont know if it's vista or BF2 doing this). Once I found it and unmuted it BF2 worked fine with no problems hope that helps.

I tried to join but crashed immediately after I joined the game 

Well I don't know what to think of the missing MG tracers...
Of course it makes life easier for portable MGs and APCs, but your stealth bonus doesn't last long anyway if you need more time to hit your target because you cannot adjust your aim properly without tracers. Furthermore the lost of tracers does not only affect static MGs... I noticed it on the Hetzer as well and I guess it applies to all non coaxial MGs on vehicles... it also weakens the immersion when firing or being fired at.
Why has it been taken out anyway?

Because with them on you might as well have had a big neon sign saying "I'M OVER HERE COME SHOOT ME" giving you lifespan of 20seconds after firing. I'm very happy they got removed and hull mounted mg's still have them btw I think the hetzer  or stug are just the odd ones out.

Just got off the Forgotten honour server had a good night on there here's what I think so far

-Tanks....what a difference really enjoyed them tonight, love the keyboard controls, love all the beefed up sounds they feel like proper metal beasts now. I seen the angle modifier at work was playing eppeldorf in the jagdpanzer and seen a couple of shots ricochet off the shermans, also noticed that shermans turret blows off when destroyed looked really cool I got robbed of a KT kill on bastogne in the sherman 76, managed to flank right round and hit him in the rear, he started backing up and looking for me and I'm about to put the finishing round in when round ends arghh. Cant say for sure yet how this will affect balance for tanks I think it's too soon to tell but first impressions were pretty good tonight.

Graphics- Really like the new effects seen  two people whine A LOT about them, but I thought it was better everything seemed to just blend, before you could see playermodels and vehicles from miles away now it's a lot harder and I like it.

Maps-First class, not a dud amongst them even getting hammered in hurtgen forest as the jerries I enjoyed it. I also got to try sidi rezegh which was good fun jumped into the M13 and laughed when I heard the mightiest machine gun sound come from this tin can

Infantry-Didn't really do a lot of ground pounding and when I did I was mostly trying to just hide and spot for arty was good fun though.

Arty-This is the only thing I thought 'meh' the mobile arty is really hard to use. I had to jump in the rocket jeep with a guy called panzer_pimp and steer/aim while he manned the rockets, was really awkward I hope that the bug that forced the separation of the positions is sorted someday

So overall superb update to FH had a good night on Forgotten honour but it sounds like some of you guys we're having a bad one on hslan. Just want to say when it comes to discussing balance and using hslan play as an example, please remember that this server never switches sides or even mixes up the teams when one is getting really hammered. That has a massive effect on how the game plays and is my major gripe with that particular server. I've spent whole evenings on there and my team has lost every round no matter what we did so not saying you guys are wrong just saying that the server might have had something to do with it as well as the new gameplay changes.

 

Planes look much better in 2.4 can't wait to try them all out and see the differences now, downloading the torrents tonight I'll do a bit of seeding later.

Thanks again FH team