The strength of flares is more specific to team games. Sure, the spec ops(or brit) flares are good in 1v1s, but its in team games that they shine and I was careful to specify that. The rest of the post is made with TEAMgames in mind.
Now, I wholeheartedly DISagree with your examples. Single pass recons are NOT good with loiters. Loiters require you to maintain line of sight for additional passes. Recon LOITERS are good with offensive loiters but not single passes.
Test in game, you might be surprised how helpful this planes are especially once major get vet1.
They do mean that you will always have a recon for off map artillery without having to select a commander for it as USF or UKF. This is largely necessary since both UKF and USF each only have 1 commander with recon.
Actually it is other way around USF had more reckon planes but they where removed because the major made them redundant. It time major reckon especially since most USF off map have been buffed and bring back doctrinal abilities like other factions
UKF have a number doctrinal abilities that come with some sort of reckon and I have no objection in adding loiter planes in some commanders.
But in the case of Ostheer, 10 of the 21 commanders have recon either loiter or single pass, and the best team game commanders have them. Really you should never not have a recon option in your axis loadout and there isn't much opportunity cost since the best commanders have them.
Look, in the end USF, UKF and Ostheer all have ready access to aerial recon through various means and that's fine. OKW and soviets lag behind in this regard though soviets compensate with a wide selection of land based non doc recon options(mortar flares, T70, sniper flares etc). Only OKW is somewhat lacking and that could be solved by getting the infrared halftrack fixed up.
This is not about reckon generally is about being able to use once off map in any desired location for a small mu cost without practically any counter.
Being able to call dirty cheap off map like "concentration barrage", precision bombing like TOT and Concentration Artillery operation or the all powerful Air supremacy operation almost anywhere on the map is simply silly.