I mean what you say is true but do I really want more riflemen? And they bleed a fuck ton more because the stupid officer reinforce bug thing. It'd be better if lt and captain were a small utility squad like the major IMO.
Double pack howie is asking to get stuka'd and has like half the auto fire range of leigs and a massive barrage cooldown, but it does absolutely wreck shit if you make it work (and your opponent is slightly senile). Double pack howie also usually means no mg and no at guns, the latter because that's like >600 mp and you already had to spam rifles and probably bled a lot.
I want more riflemen for free. A free squad is never a bad squad. Especially if it comes with thompson, pasive sprint at vet3. Lieuhtenant even comes with a BAR. Because I receive those free squads I am able to get a solid army composition while building ONLY 3 Riflemen. This allows me to use saved manpower for example on another utility vehicle or a team weapon or acquire an ambulance sooner.
If you force your opponent to buy stuka in 1v1 then you have already won the "tank cold war". He will have 100 fuel less for normal tanks and thus you can outproduce him with your fuel-cheap M10 much more easily, destroy his tanks first while his rakks are bombarded by howies, then hunt the stuka.