Does it need balancing? Well, the general consensus on the forums seems to be that peripherals are a person's own choice and that's just the way it is - if one is better than another then it's just tough on the people with the "lesser" hardware, but software advantages (3rd person/HUD-only views) should not be allowed (even though the gains of an OR/HOTAS setup will be much more significant IMHO).
Completely agree with this!. Just because an individual does not want to use certain tools should NOT muck it up for people who do.
Otherwise where do you draw the line? You would end up with a scenario where everything is catered for KM/M users and a mess for everyone else (AKA WarThunder)
I dont have one yet, but am fully committed to either a Dev kit V2 or a consumer rift, and a large part of that is because of ED.
And again, this is completely different from supporting 3rd person view etc as any advantage delivered by OR is becasue makes the game MORE realistic and closer to the vision of the devs and isnt a nonsense "cheat" which makes no sense in reality.
** I dont personally have a problem with outside views outside of combat for possible screenshot / video purposes or just eye candy, or the option of adding these into recorded "replay" footage for the same reason.