Good luck trying to explain this to a consumer who has no idea about CoH2 at all. All he/she is going to see is $100's worth of DLC and laugh and continue browsing the steam store. Everyone here who has logic know elite and industry were pretty much the only broken commanders. The damage has been done, its hard to salvage CoH/Relic's reputation at this point. The marketing/dlc whoring was predominantly Sega's fault but to the average consumer all they see is the game and probably developer after that if they aren't too narrow minded.
I have to agree having dlc for any rts game that's something other than campaign expansion packs or skins shows that the game isn't worth buying if you want to have a competitive scene or enjoy the game without worrying about stupid things.