Costs are counter play. Muni abilities also add some interesting choices. Spend all your muni on BARS because you like easy mode is still always an option, but some of use want to actually enjoy the game and interact with it.
The E8 performs well for its role and cost. Adding another layer requires additional balancing, thus the additional costs. You would still be welcome to ignore the abilities, nobody is pointing a gun to your head.
A variety of abilities makes the game more dynamic in addition to elevating to skill ceiling instead of do it all units simply raising the floor.
False. You have some weird notion that COH2 is some sort of pro-scene RTS. If anything, doctrines should add some flavour and/or different tactics. Spending all muni on bars is easy mode when? So you spend all muni on bars, and then get shut down by any sort of vehicle/indirect. I really don't know what faction you play the most, nor at which rank you play, but spending all your <insert resource here> on <insert object here> usually leads to losses and is a 1000+ rank play.
Same as how you'll see people only spamming falls into tanks, or Sections, or upgrading rifles to the max and then lacking muni for a simple smoke nade or snare.
Or the classic MG42 spam I ran into last game with gren LMG spam.
Or the brilliant Penal/Guards spam that ragequits after one stuka bleeds 300+ MP in one volley.
Yeah, don't BS me with such petty nonsensical arguments.
"some of us want to actually enjoy the game and interact..." my God the cringe.
"A variety of abilities..." Yeah. No. You're not raising skill ceilings, nor are you raising floors. All you're doing is adding abilities. That's it. Don't mistake this game for some God-given pro RTS that is super dynamic and immersive. It's not. It's an arcade RTS. Always has been, always will be. Adding abilities just adds abilities, nothing more, nothing less.
Adding abilities to E8 that wipe infantry would do nothing, unless we're talking about mega blob control. E8 already has enough AI through pintle MG and snipe shots to bleed infantry (kinda like a Panther, but better). It does not need some ability for 30 or 40 munis that would kill one more model. It's not going to be used unless you make it an IS-2 frag shot level.
The one thing I agree with is that adding abilities makes the game dynamic. That is true. However, there is something called time. Imagine if you had a unit with 10 abilities. Now by your standards, that unit would be the pinnacle of dynamic play. I'd wager my left ball that 9/10 of those abilities would go unused throughout 90% of engagements. You either don't have time or space or both, to execute every ability, one after the other.
So again, you're not wrong, you're just misguided