The current purely hypothetical state of air warfare compared to Cold War

I was having a rummage through ACIG and it dawned to me that the concept of air combat in 2013 has become a purely hypothetical construct.

Last air-to-air combats took place in 1999 (Serbia and Ethiopia-Eritrea).

And even then period from 1992 is generally low in terms of A2A combat – some skirmishing over Bosnia and Serbia and between Greece and Turkey, the odd Iraqi NFZ kill and Ethiopia-Eritrea.

Compare that to post-WWII period – Korea, Vietnam, Arab-Israeli Wars, Ogaden War, Angola, Iran-Iraq, India-Pakistan, Falklands, skirmishing between China and Taiwan, Pakistan and USSR, .

Obviously this is good for people not being killed in massed conventional wars (though casualty rates continue in small primitive wars).

However it’s interesting that we discuss Rafale v Gripen v Flanker v Pak Fa v F-22 v etc etc when in all reality these are purely hypothetical and will probably remain hypothetical as conventional war is too costly.

At least in 1972 one could say “My F-4E smacks down your MiG-21PF/PFM/MF” and there’d be actual proof of it.