Lets say for example that Whermacht had access to both the Stug and the Jagpanzer IV. Naturally people would invest into the Jagpanzer IV because of the 60 range and being a better unit making the Stug a poor Investment. Su-76 has a similar issue being outclassed by T-70 and Su-85 making it a niche non important unit that rarely gets used.
This is the case with USF. Why should the M8 Scott be a Mini Brumbar when USF already has the 105 Sherman Dozer which is exactly that.
So lets say we make the M8 Scott into a Mini Brumber what would be the point of the Sherman 105 Dozer then? You basically created a Dead Weight Commander Ability in the process making Armor Company less of an option and a weaker pick overall.
Now say we make Pak Howitzer Barrage Focused Only with no Auto Attack, that means the Barrage Would need much longer range and lethality to make up for the fact that it lost its Auto Attack or else it would be useless. This means that unless you go LEFH the Pak Howitzer would be out of reach of Stuka/Panzerwerfer and would be almost impossible to kill. This means that Axis would be forced to go LEFH every single game just to counter a basic USF unit and no one wants that.
This leads us to having no change at all and leaving USF exactly where it is. The only option we have is to make M8 Scott a barrage focused unit that is strong yet fair but strong enough so that Calliope isn't mandatory for USF every game.
You've got a weird conception of design and balance. Pakhowi could remains more or less the same with a barrage that's more accurate / more shells - but not necessarily more range dedicated to counter static positions.
In fact it could be use the same way Rocket arty are atm, you use the barrage and soft retreat until its up again.
Then Scott can be an auto-attack unit, with maybe only smoke as a barrage, that is designed to bleed your opponent and punish blobb.
Lastly, I don't understand your Laius on Stug/jpz and Sherman Dozer, Dozer is a doctrinal unit which has demonstrated to be quite useless at the moment even with its new barrage, but even with that you can't be serious telling us that Scott can't be that because there is a doctrinal unit doing more or less the same. You can use both StugE and StugG which have different purpose in game and using the StugE doesn't mean you can't later on use a Brumbar for similar purposes.
Allies dominated the finals in the last big 1v1 tourney 7-0. Axis pulled it's weight in earlier rounds.
Allies just dominated the 4v4 tourney.
And I'm not even saying they're op. All I'm saying is that they certainly have a chance. Because allied players have proven it when it matters.
Which shows how imbalanced is the game. Obviously when you play within a team with assigned strategy you'll overcome your faction gaps. Nobody within a team is going to ask USF to do the arty job if he doesn't have calliope or priest in its loadout.
But this only shows that balance has to come from the team play instead of the game.