I've got a few games under my belt and something has been nagging at me for a while now.  I've tried to look for the answer but have not found one yet and wonder if anyone else in the community feels this way:

Playing CV:

Tier 5 - I have a few planes and can bomb a BB.  Very few planes means I have limited influence on the battle.  I have access to five squadrons of five planes and can scout a decent portion of the map while using one to two squadrons to bomb.  The enemy fears my ability to provide vision to my team more than they fear my bombs.

Tier 6 - Same as Tier 5 except now I have one more squadron worth of planes to play with.

Tier 7 - Same as Tier 5 & 6 except instead of one more squadron worth of planes to play with I have two or two and a half!  I'm able to fight battles for a longer duration and defeat lower tier CV's through a battle of attrition. 

Tier 8 - A quantum leap in power and influence has just kicked in.  I not only have seven squadrons to work with, rather than five, but I can also send out seven planes per squadron now!  The ability to stack fourteen bombers instead of ten is a 40% increase to damage when attacking an enemy ship using two squadrons of bombers.  Granted it takes a little longer to assemble the planes the trade off in potential damage is more than worth it.

Tier 9 - Same as Tier 8 except now I have one more squadron worth of planes to play with.  With upgrades a bit more.

Tier 11 - Same as Tier 9 except now I have one and a half squadrons worth of planes to play with.  With upgrades a bit more.

The number of planes in the sky at any given time is the measure of how much power and influence a CV has.  However the types of planes are also a measure of how much power and influence a CV player has as well.  T1 fighters vs. T3 fighters is a joke.  I do not want to see more quantum leaps in power or influence but something must be done.  If you look at other ship lines you will see that as their tiers go up so does their range, damage and/or ability to counter other ship classes.  This does not seem to be the case with CV's.  The only increase in power or influence from Tier 8 to Tier 11 seems to be the ability to win a war of attrition with other CV's. 

I'll put this another way to help anyone not understanding what I'm getting at.  Imagine having the same weapons on any other class of ship from Tiers 8 through 11 with the only difference is Ammo count.  In a war of attrition whoever has more ammo can do more fighting.  However you do the same damage at Tier 11 as a ship from Tier 8.  That means equally skilled BB's at Tier 8 would be on even footing with Tier 11 BB's until the Tier 8 BB runs out of Ammo.  How often do you run out of ammo?  The same goes for CV's, at Tier 11 I do not forsee the ships living long enough to use all their planes due to how quickly the games end. 

At Tier 9 it's very common for me to end the game, be it victory or loss, with plenty of planes left to use because I simply cannot have them all in the air at the same time.  Can BB's shoot 800 shells all at once?  No.  Should CV's be able to send out all their planes at once?  No.  And for the same reason, it would be game breaking how much damage could be inflicted on the enemy if that were to happen.  I held back on saying much about this because I wanted to bring this up with possible solutions rather than simply ranting "ITS BROKE FIX IT".

Here are a few ideas on how to improve CV power and influence without causing game breaking balance issues:

1)  Add a set of Tier 3 Bombers that have the options to be more heavily armored and faster with the same fuel.  They still have the same bombs strapped under them so the damage would remain the same.  However the increased survivability of these planes would enable more of them to survive long enough to reach their target. 

2)  Add a set of Tier 4 Fighters with increased Fuel time so that they can stay in the air longer.  On certain maps it's pretty much a suicide mission to have your fighters attack the enemy at long distance.  Giving access to planes with longer sortie range gives higher Tier CV's the ability to increase their area of influence and have more impact on the game as it unfolds.

3)  Change the access to aircraft away from Captain level to CV Tier.  Right now CV's are able to load "Fighter".  However if you change it so that only certain CV's are able to load Tier 3 Fighters regardless of Captain rank you are able to more distinguish how much power and influence each CV has as their tiers goes up. 

4)  Offer a "Flight Deck" improvement that allows CV players to increase the number of squadrons and/or the number of planes per squadron.  This improvement would be interchangable with the Capacity improvement that is currently in the game.  Players would have to choose to bring more planes and fewer/smaller squadrons and play a war of attrition or bring a setup that allows for slightly more power and influence early on without being able to fight in the long term.

5)  Allow recon planes to not occupy squadron slots but rather "Recon" slots.  These slots would be used to assemble and launch Recon planes only.  As the Tiers of CV increase so could the "Recon" slots allowing a higher Tier CV to field more scout planes than lower tier CV's while both keep the same combat ability as now.

These are just a few ideas that have been rolling around in my head.  I have more but I'd like feedback on these as well as others opinions on how CV power and influence can be improved as their Tiers go up other than being able to win a war of attrition.