"Those good ole Golden Days when everything was better"
To be completely and brutally honest, vCoH didn't break as much new ground as you think.
DoW frankly was the first to come out with many of the developments in RTS that you probably, falsely, attribute to CoH.
Thats where Relic brought evolution to the genre in its most profound sense, because the genre itself was so stagnant and copy/paste at the time.
In DoW (2004), not CoH (2006), which came out later and merely emulated those same advancements.
You are accrediting the wrong game for those genre related progressions.
As far as I am concerned, as related specifically to Relic games, the evolution is clear.
DoW->CoH->DoW2->Coh2.
Each game has incrementally built upon the ground broken by its predecessor, consistently and nigh systematically.
I fully expect a DoW3, eventually, to continue this heritage and line of progression. Almost certainly it will include destructable terrain, a similar objective/resource/VP based MP, Commanders/Doctrines, similar asymmetric pairings between factions, and something resembling the recently introduced Cold-Tech and an even better "True-Sight" system (I would anticipate a unit specific view system, rather than the shared LoS in the current True-Sight").
dow3 with true sight.
relic why can tiranids see trough barriers smell ability too op nerf plz.
i think the worst of coh2 is the comunity.
DOW2 is a game i dropped because it was TOO GOOD. it was literaly the only game i played i needed to unistall it because i needed to free that time to play other games.
coh2 i dont know so much, i dont feel like playing it much, because i feel matches are not as balanced. doctrinal units choises are too important. it was not like in dow were a baneblade or a landraider were powerfull units but not imune to damage they where challenges not op everyshot reflects stuff.