Keep in mind that there were counters even back in the day.
Snipers could take out expensive OKW elite infantry and do a number on OKW's MP
Grenades, vehicles tend to be good too against elite inf.
Obers IMO were a lot like the VCoH's KCH.
Of course you don't want them just wiping inf at an instant but at the same time you want them to win against vetted base infantry, not the elite inf we currently have. Somewhere in between is good.
No, there was only one counter against them back in the day and that was either early game mortar spam or indirect fire. 2-3 obers squad walk all over snipers. can flank and kill all retreating infantry. If vehicles come, switch with volks and shrek. If Allies use vehicles... i'm sure Axis has them too. Old OKW was very strong.
Sturms were so powerful at killing all baseline infantry, they had to get reinforce nerf and received accuracy increase.
Obers were nerfed and lmg became an upgrade...
USF didn't have snipers or mortars to counter obers/volks spam.
All of this was before Allies' baseline infantry rework. No vet 3 buff for riflemen. No vet 3 buff for conscripts. Conscripts had a script line for a chance of instant burn death from grenades and flamers... Allies were always fighting the uphill battle in the "old" days.
So imagine OKW then... they ripped through everything. The more they vet, the more unstoppable they became. Then, they buffed katyusha to deal with shrek/ober squads... overdid it. katyusha spam to kill forward HQs and infantry blobs.
Nerfed katyusha and buffed allies baseline infantry instead. Allies blob became too strong. buff volks. Buff panzerwerfer so it squadwipes. introduce calliope as an allied squadwiper. game is blobber vs. mobile anti squadwiper.
Do you see where this going? a lot of the patches were to address blobbing and superior infantry.