I think he makes a good point about the adaptive difficulty at 17:44. It could have been a good idea if it didn't adjust so rapidly. But I too had noticed that, regardless of where it started, by the end of most missions I have inflicted enough damage to push difficulty to the maximum, regardless of whether I'm beating the mission with ease or if I'm one hit away from exploding.

Although it also looks like he took a while to find the "g" key to change gun settings, so for a lot of the difficulty rant he is flying a Rapier with only Particle Cannons active. He finds full guns eventually.
 
Great video, thanks!

Probably I am opening a long discussion here, but I agree with ADG what Wing Commander II has lower replayability than Wing Commander I.