I disagree. Armor company is quite good now if you ignore the vehicle crew thompsons and artillery. It allows you to skip teching major entirely and bring in a bunch of call-in tanks.
Airborne paradrop weapons are expensive because they allow you to skip a tier without losing access to that weapon. That's very powerful. Paratroopers are also amazing.
Infantry company's great for the M1919 alone.
I agree that recon isn't great, but pathfinder artillery is a diamond in the rough. And again, the M8 gives you access to a light vehicle if you want to skip lieutenant.
Mechanized and Rifle company are amazing, I don't think anyone disputes that.
cutting off your enemy's retreat path is an essential part of the early game. If you allow that to happen in a way that your squads are unlikely to make it home, it means you were over extended. It's important not to send lone units too far behind enemy lines for just that reason.
The 240mm barrage is basically useless, and absurdly overpriced for what you get. The cool sound effects are gone too.
The P-47 air strike is awesome... when it actually works. Half the time it shoots a building or the ground. In COH you could control your planes' angle of attack. Now you have no such control, and even an air strike against a stationary panther may do zero or negligible damage because of how narrow it is. So too expensive for how unreliable it is.
The 150mm barrage is way too good by comparison. It falls the fastest and most accurately, is cheaper than the above, stuns vehicles and does massive damage. It can destroy an OKW truck at full health with a little luck. Usually you'll need to hit it with one or two shots from an AT weapon of your choice.
Time on target barrage is almost just right, but takes a bit too long to arrive.
Major artillery is a total joke. It's the cheapest artillery but also completely useless. It drops three inaccurate shells. At vet two it drops five instead, making it... still useless.
I&R pathfinder artillery is actually pretty good. I think it could be better though.
So here are my suggestions:
240mm should not give warning smoke (but it SHOULD get its sound effects back so the enemy can hear it coming, similar to the V1 from CoH). That will somewhat make up for its ridiculously large spread by leaving the enemy uncertain where exactly it is centered. I think it should be cheaper too, considering only the first two shells are likely to actually do anything.
P-47 needs to be a little more accurate. I'd also really like to control angle of attack to avoid frustration with buildings and terrain but I know that's basically asking for a completely different ability.
Switch the effectiveness of the 150mm barrage and the I&R pathfinder barrage. The pathfinder barrage requires more skill to drop on an enemy truck than a simple call-in. It also requires the recon commander, which is not all that great so it could use a small buff.
Major artillery just needs to be pinpoint accurate if it's going to only drop three shells. It needs to fall a little faster too. Ideally if they see the smoke immediately they should be able to safely reposition. If they see it a second late, they should be able to retreat without losing any full squads. They should not be able to sit still and take zero casualties.
Time on target just needs to fall a little faster.
why sniper first? wouldn't it make more sense to get the conscripts first for some capping power. What is an unsupported sniper going to do other than snipe one sturmpio and immediately retreat