Upgrades (or their equivalents) have been a hallmark of every single RTS in history, and for good reason: they add an extra dimension to a game's strategic diversity, and they exponentially increase the number of possible strategies players can employ. It's not about making CoH2 more like DoW2, it's about giving CoH2 a basic element of RTS play that has been proven time after time in other games (CoH1 included) to drastically improve strategic variety, yet has been inexplicably excluded.
there is one semi-exception to this that i immediately think of: Total Annihilation. the game doesn't have any global upgrades. it does however feature a similar mechanic in that you build higher tiers to produce units that are generally direct upgrades to lower tiers so it's not like the game is completely devoid of upgrades. it also features a shit ton more units than CoH2 or even SC and so the game requires more macro (and at higher levels micro) than CoH2 and unit wise probably than SC.