I would be interested to know what paying gives you apart from the ability to climb through the ranks quicker to top BR ? Bushes seem to make you more noticeable on most maps and you have great arrows giving your position away anyway.
Crew skills in terms of re load are likely to be no more of an issue than your internet connection on a world wide or continental level you are talking such a small increase and how often to you get into a quick draw situation with an identical tank anyway?
Those who never paid will never experience the game from the view point of those who paid a lot.The fact you paid and still get whacked from half way across the map by a non payer you didn’t even see.That will either happen or it wont regardless of how much you spend.Even the top spenders and even the top players are getting whacked at top tier from a plane a mile away they cant even see .
There is no equality built into WarThunder any way at any level.Even BR1 has level 100 veterans with years of experience and free prize or battle pass vehicles that new players can no longer buy. The whole Ptw thing seems like a moot point in such an unequal game with so many permutations.If the game was free for all it would still be unbalanced in so many ways.
Those who play for free are just convinced the world is against them.My advice is if you are so wound up about it either don’t play or spend some cash and see for yourself how little changes for you. At least you can shed the victim mentality.