I disagree entirely. Baseline performance should be balanced by stock units, doctrinal units should balanced off of the stock units that have established the balance as long as the balance has been established between the factions core units, which I believe that tanks, frankly are, then as long as doctrinal tanks are balanced relative to their stock counterpart all is well.
Nope since they are not facing there stock units but the enemy units.
As an extreme example to demonstrate the flaw in the logic I will use the M10.
With that M10 should cost 155 fuel and have range 70 speed 8 and penetration 300 because it balance relatively to M36.
Even at that, look at Ostheer. Doctrinal they can get the okw p4. It costs 145 fuel iirc, which is 25 fuel more than the standard p4. It gets ~55 more armour.
What Ostheer basically get with PzIV J is they pay extra fuel for the frontal armor of vet 2. It even has less rear armor than vet 2 PZIV.
The KV1 costs about double that more than the t34 and *gasp* gets nearly double the armour. It gets other things too (more health and currently a damage modifier) but considering that the cost difference between the t34 and the KV1 is roughly the difference between a P4 and a Panther. And I don't think we need to delve into all the things the Panther gets over the p4 eh?
Panther and PzIV have different roles one At vehicles and the peteris main battle tank, the analogy is simply off mark.
The KV1s performance is balanced in the faction for its price.
The t34 and the p4 are balanced against each other, then slap an extra 50% to the cost of the t34 and its going to be a hell of a lot better...
And that is why is not balanced correctly. It is simply more cost efficient than that Churchill while taking far less pop.