Intel/Recon - key to victrory

Honestly, I would argue its less risky but I think it could also be a push on that topic due to armor values

You /have/ to put yourself at more of a risk when using the Panther when compared to an allied TD due to the lower range. It's not so much a case of comparing armour, but of use-cases. The Panther puts itself more at risk by necessarily entering the range of allied TDs, and potentially getting close enough to eat a snare or run over a mine (If it wants to have a good chance to hit; the Panther has worse accuracy (especially at "far" ranges) than the allied TDs, coupled with having a worse Target Size than the Firefly or especially the SU-85).

The armour isnt quite as much a factor as you might think, the Allied TDs have very good pen (except the Firefly). Your survivability vs them is more a factor of your extra HP in a lot of cases, your armour is more to help shrug off medium tank and AT gun shells.

I think jp4 is very balanced unit, but if any of the vehicles on this topic could be considered "unwieldly" itd probably be this one.

He's absolutely using the wrong terminology with the word "unwieldy", what I'm taking him to mean is that the Panther is indeed just a bit riskier to use effectively.

The JP4 is a great unit though, I agree. Very difficult to kill, and does very nice DPS, it's just not fantastic vs high-armour units (Unless, like me, you use it in conjunction with HEAT shells), and less versatile than a Panther.

Yeah soviets are definitely the best allied late game faction but I'd still give the late game advantages to axis on the whole axis vs allies. I wasn't even trying to be mean when I said that to him, just legit don't psyche yourself out and throw games because you feel like you're gonna get beat no matter what.

Eh, depends, I can see it argued either way. I'd personally put Soviet at the top of the pile thanks to their incredible MP efficiency, but I don't think it's worth debating too deeply on.

EDIT: As an aside: I agree that people shouldn't "give up" as soon as they often do. CoH2 is designed with a lot of "Comeback" mechanics, and even a fairly hopeless situation can be turned around with one or two good plays.