Vice War 2 is still my absolute favourite but as Calhoun said, things feel way different when you're younger. That was my first ever VW and man did I love the chaos. I was young back then and the uppers thought between VW2 and VW3 that the Sea Sparrow is something you can't balance and better we take it out, didn't like that cuz that's what made VW2 so fun at the Junkyard.
I agree with you Silent on Vice War 7, that's my second fav. Multiple teams really made that Vice War tense in a good way. You might swoop in and eliminate an enemy team and capture the base but there's another team watching you all ready to make their strike on you, you couldn't drop your guard with that VW.
VW5/6 are equally third favourite. I don't remember who it was but I remember being trapped as shit at Cherry Poppers base in VW6 because someone took the roof near bank and was RPG sniping us real damn good. And since that base was so close to enemy home base it was a constant hell defending ourselves till backup finally arrived and we loaded up on some helis and scatter. Then I remember taking the enemy heli which were colour coded and everytime the Russians would pin us down I just helibladed the entire entrance clearing up the home base for us lol. Good times.
In terms of management/development, there are seasons to it. I missed VW4 but I heard it sucked so bad, and that's how I got into development cuz we ran out of ideas. VW5 was such a good concept to aXXo, without hesitation he just scripted it and voila, Vice War 5: Escobar Escapade. While I directed the gamemode concepts from 5 to 8, by the time we hit VW8, it was that time again like VW4 to switch things up i.e. my season was over. VW8 became more of a proof of concept when it comes to aerial warfare than a favourite among many. The only favourite I truly hear from 8 is the Bomber Planes
VW9 brought back the classical style (which bored the hell out of me personally) but really showed me that there were a lot of old folks in the back wanting back that nostalgia of the 0.3z days and maybe even that's season is back again.