are there any modern space dogfighting games like this? why did this genre die?
Right now there is Elite: Dangerous, and in another year or so Star Citizen. The genera died because games moved away from PC centric to console centric for development. And since consoles had limited peripherals, complex control schemes used to play these types of games were either very expensive to do, or simply not possible. Add in the fact that publishers became super risk adverse and won't touch something "new" (or in this case, "old") which hasn't had a recent (i.e. last 6-12 months) release of a similar genera game to point at market/consumer demand for such a game, well, they simply say, no to the funding of such a game.
If you look at the last 5-10 years of game development, there has been really only one new genera (outside of phone based games) that appeared, which was the music/rythem games such as Guitar Hero, and Rock Band. Guitar Hero only really came about because of the older drum rythem games, which had a very small following, but existed non-the-less. But to create "Rock Band" which involved combining the drum rythem games, with the recent hit, guitar rythem games, and the older sing-star singing games, the development studio had to basically quit and form a new company because the publisher didn't want to take the risk (they are THAT risk adverse!), even though millions of people were screaming all over the place drooling at the chance to do an entire band since they knew all the pieces where there separately in different games.
Anyway back to the point, the point is publishers don't like risk. They want to make a game that they are certain they will make their money back. The only way to be certain they will make their money back is to essentially remake a game that is already making money with very little changes to it for who knows what small change may make the game no longer make money...