I holeheartidly agree with you guys as to the importance of having New Britain as a Japanese base of operations, I have been burnt before as the Commonwealth when our Japanese oponent was sitting fat with a small stack of fighters on New Britain. Every ship that I tried to launch from Syndey was fried before I could even get into serious gameplay!
As a Japanese player, I must say that the Phillipines is also a very strategic place to hold onto. Having the Phillipines is a darn good stop when one is using the classic “shuck-shuck” strategy to end run India by the Malaya route. I have slammed Allied oponents hard before buy getting the Japan-Phillipines-Malaya-Indian Ocean troop route secured. With transports going up and down this route at will it is very easy to move massive amounts of screaming Japanese Infintry dudes into the Indian Ocean reasonably early in the game.
Off course, this is just me