Funny thing is ... with @ 1000 hours dedicated to the ACM arena under my belt from the late '70's to the mid '80's -- I've only seen those birds airborne .... maybe 2-3 times and never involved in a "fight". I participated in several Red Flags -- and they were always a "no show" ... although we mimicked the tactics and tried to emulate the flight parameters that these birds brought to the table. I get the feeling they were aerial test beds more than anything else.
Preference for 'exposures' was given to the Air Force AD because it funded about 66% of the programme, with the Navy and Marines getting a corresponding 33% of the total exposures available. The Navy decided which naval aviators, which squadrons and which dets got exposed, and it sounds to me like you were just unlucky not to be chosen (perhaps precisely because you were reserve?).
There was a small phase, right at the start of the squadron history, where the jets were flew only 'performance profiles', but stopped short of BFM or ACM. This eventually went away, and by the 1980s the squadron was
flying full-up BFM and ACM. Similarly, there were times when they had few jets and maintenance issues that grounded them for short periods, but once they were fixed the MiGs were actually very reliable and generating sorties was no problem.
