its not an incredibly expensive habit, if you don't mind spending a few bucks, and your budget allows it I suggest jumping in now, there's quite a few mistakes to make
and its better to learn them now then when a new world starts and you really didn't want to Bankrupt. I was going to come back later but I'm so glad I joined now I BK'd 4 times before I found a home and a small nitch
as for the game being 1/2 over, your defiantly not going to take over the world but you can find a out of the way place make a small to mid size airline and learn alot of stuff.
like when and where to fly what planes do better and the what not to do that will BK you... plus you can peek at what all the other airlines are doing.
my out of the way airline now sports 100 A/C more then I thought I could do.
I also joined an alliance and they taught me so much!
Good luck,
if you read the forums they are beta testing a newer version and the next world will release when its debugged.
cant tell you much about it I was away from my PC when the 75 slots opened up and I couldn't join.
Airbus101