Guys, vCoH came out 9-06
IIRC, and I may not because I was a 7th grade noob, before 1.4, the game was fairly broken balance wise. 1.4 was passable.
1.4 was 11-06, 2 months after release
1.5 was better, 1-07
1.6 IIRC was fairly balanced, and came out during 5-07, 8 months after release
1.7 is considered the pinnacle of balance, and came out at the end of 5-07. Some say it was perfect (though I know it had its flaws) while others say it was merely fantastic (although I do remember of a few who hate the patch)
So let's put a 99% sticker on 1.7. 8 and a half months after release. Make what you want of that.
The only kicker is that OF came out in 9-07 and fucking TRASHED the balance. It wasn't until 2.301, in 4-08, that the situation was considered acceptable. So let's equate 2.301 with 1.5.
You can do math but since it's an approximation, it won't tell you anything useful. But right off the bat, we see Relic did get shittier with OF. The reason OFC is that the design of OF was, frankly, horrible, which made balancing a bloody mess. Speaking of, summer of 08, anyone remember that? The summer of 1.71. We got our cake and ate it too, for a mere 3 months. But it was delicious!
Anyways, after 2.301, we had to wait a fucking year for 2.4/2.5/ToV. Balance finally came back during 2.4 (or 2.5, I forget which, but it was the one right before ToV) before being broken once again by ToV (mainly the custom units).
I haven't followed CoH 2 too well until recently, but it seems that we just about had things worked out on the eve of the WFA release, until WFA fucked it all up.
So what happened to Relic? Well they actually have a good balance team. They just have some combination of a poor design team, overly ambitious management, and unskilled play testers. I'd guess that the balance team and design team don't communicate too effectively.
But I think the design team is too much of theorycrafters. They have ideal versions in their heads of how the factions work. Not real versions of how they actually work. They have playtesting "yes men" who cannot play on the level or even close to the community pros that don't keep the design team in check "No guys, sniper squads are a great idea and should totally go in cars! And I love the idea of the OKW, how they are forced to stick to a script!".
As for management, perhaps management is too weak to shut up the design team's bad ideas, or the design team is being forced to go to lengths it doesn't want to by an overly ambitious management.
Either way, there is a serious breakdown in the middle echelon of Relic. It's like they are a great team as individuals, and when they work together properly, it's fantastic, but they never do!
http://companyofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Changelog