265 for a JPIV? You get one HQ for free so you pay exactly 135 fuel (203 fuel for other factions).
What does a SU-85 cost? 120 (teching) + 120 fuel = 240 fuel for a TD with less armor and worse vet bonuses.
OKW fuel penalty means almost nothing if teching is cheap.
A Panther, for example, costs 400MP + 120 fuel (T1 or T2 + T3) + 490 MP + 263 fuel = 890 MP and 383 fuel (for other factions).
A Panther for Wehrmacht costs way more MP (only BPs are already 600MP) 160 fuel for BPs, 175 for the Panther, 15 fuel to build T2 = 350 fuel (375 fuel if you also build T3 but who does that?).
The KT does not have more range BTW. It has exactly 40 range like every other heavy tank.
The fuel penalty is important because it reduces the amount of tanks you can build and how fast you can replace them. The point is not that your tanks are just supposed to be "better" it's just that your supposed to focus on unit preservation and "making do with what you have".
The reason I adjust the prices of units for OKW that cost fuel is I'm trying to get across that things like the Jadgpanzer and Panther are expensive investments, you can't spam either simply because you don't have the income to do so. If you want OKW to make more sense as a faction in relation to the others as far as thing likes micro go your going to actually need to give them something to micro.
And yes OKW teching is cheap, but that means jack shit if you don't have the fuel income to get your tanks out the door and defend your HQ's. The reason you see so many people spamming volks is that because volks with shreks are your only reliable AT at the beginning of the game, if OKW had more options than people woundn't be forced to do the same thing every time.
You can't complain about OKW not needing as much micro when to stay competitive a OKW player is required to micro a large amount of infantry in order to stall for actual AT, and if you want OKW to require more micro for their tanks how about giving them more than 1 tank to actually micro?