I’m using a piece of rubber shelf liner (like ‘Grip-It’ on Amazon) between tabletop and each A&A board. Stuff is like $1 a roll at the grocery store. Slight dampening affect and definitely keeps things from sliding around.
A major sticking point among my friends in playing Axis and Allies is the wait time between turns.
What about having a combined purchase phase for all players?
And use markers for each IC (like fleet markers) to position purchases awaiting placement.