Aren't you often forced to retire after two or three patrols in the career game anyway? :hmm:
Well, considering the biggest obstacle to the demo has always been quoted as the huge size of the game map and the resources associated with it, I would seriously cut it down.
I would limit it to a single war patrol (but with a career-style video briefing and debriefing followed by a nice 'buy me!' screen :p) in an area with lots of islands but not an overly-long sailing range (somewhere in the south pacific), played perhaps on an early fleet boat (P-class or something along the lines). To give it a good flavour, it'd be nice to make the mission have multiple goals - start with troop insertion, then patrol for some shipping, then photo recon, then lifeguard. Add a good bit of traffic including a high chance of encountering a well-guarded task force and a convoy, and air attacks to boot.
That'd easily be several hours of mostly-intense gameplay and, for those who'd be interested, both give a good look at the mechanics and a very thorough exposure of what you can do.
Oh, and also a couple of training missions, a couple of practice quick missions and a multiplay map or two in the same map area using the same resources would be nice.
Pipe dreams, of course
