Never said you should use them alone, never said nade spam was a good idea. Just that they have a good nade and can upgrade with heavy AT and come in as a cheaper squad than cons with more levels of vet. All of which, frankly, make them better than conscripts.
And yes, they do have one less model than cons. But they win the long range engagement (where all fights begin, unless blindsided around a corner), which translates into a close range advantage because you start on the upper hand.
And also conscripts are utterly unique for basic infantry in that they have a recieved accuracy penalty right out of the bat. Bullets that would otherwise miss them magically gravitate to their fleshy skulls. Volks do not.
For 5 mp cheaper they are every bit as good as conscripts out of the gate. Only unlike conscripts they scale into the late game well.
My point was and is stop trying to cry pity tears for your poor volksgrenadiers when they're the one of best mainline infantry in the entire game.
They are not the best mainline infantry in the game by any margin except for late game thanks to their scaling. This isn't about pity tears, it's about you drastically underselling Allies early game units.
Rifles and cons out class Volks at the start of the game, this statement is true and has nothing to do with Volks late game performance. And yes I agree your not supposed to use them alone, that's exactly because they are your meat shield for your Sturms/Obers/things that do the actual killling.
So to conclude, OKW's early game isn't
bad it's just out classed by Soviet and USF early game which both factions which are designed to be good at early game.