1CP would be good for any other faction, but USF pretty much has to deploy their whole mainline force up front. If I go Airborne I find myself getting the ambulance early again so I'm not floating manpower, which delays teching further.
A good solution would be to tie Pathfinders to tech so they have a build time. If that build time's a fair bit longer than Riflemen then deploying them off the bat will hurt your field presence.
I like Pathfinders, you've just got to remember they're not Rifleman. You never want them to be shot at out of green cover. They work best sitting in cover at the back of an engagement sniping stuff.
I agree on that. SOV-OST-OKW is in a decent spot. Buffing up USF and UKF is a better solution than messing with the three factions that work right now.
So long as the Balance Forums are a mess of very loud, very biased people rattling their respective single-faction-themed sabres at each other I doubt it'll ever be taken seriously by Relic as a balancing resource.
Remember coh2.org isn't an official Relic website. The Balance Forums exist to give a space for people to talk about balance, given they're going to anyway. Nowhere is it implied that Relic actually reads them.