Profile of thedarkarmadillo

I voted no

Related question, would it be OP if all squads could merge with a squad of the exact same type? (not across players, just within your own army)

So grens can merge with grens, obers with obers, guards with guards, etc.

I think with how buggy merge is anything less than a 6 man squad would just be a problem waiting to happen. Hell even 6 men it's problematic if rng wills it. Keep in mind also the trade off for merge is a larger target size and no on field medical. I think it would be buggy and bad for balance

One can think as everything that comes with investing in tech/buildings as "free" but then and all faction get free staff or everything that comes with tech/building incorporated in the cost of that tech/building.

Since the game generally offer a discount for bundled things, many of things comes cheaper or some one else might claim the ones pay extra for the option to, if and when he wants to unlock something.

The rest is simply "smoke and mirror" from specific users in an attempt to create an imaginary "advantage" of the axis factions have because some things come bundled with tech/buildings.

Yes, all factions do get free stuff and some also pay for others. Like soviet do specifically for the con upgrades.
Things unlocked via teching armt extra costs, they are delayed in their timing. You could look at obers for an example of this. They sued to come from schwere and could buy their lmg, now they come from part 1 of the schwere and part 2 unlocks the LMG. The LMG isn't more expensive now, nor are obers cheaper, all that changed was timing. If something was attached to ukf bofors/AEC tech I'd argue that that is an extra, but the second arty piece in the tank tier is free and gated by time. Grens lmg is free with tech (well I mean... You pay munitions for it but you know what I mean) so is 7th man for cons, though you can pay extra to get it sooner. Rifle nade for grens is free, molotov is not. Faust is very much free, at nade is very much not.

You can't really attach a cost to units held back only by tech because they don't have a fixed value nor a fixed price. Volks stgs don't change in price depending on if you went med or mech. Their power level doesn't fluctuate. You don't think "damn it! I paid an extra 20 fuel to unlock these by going mech! Why don't they work better!" because they are free, when you tech up. However you chose to do that is up to you.

This is why, imo ost is the best faction as a baseline for balance as well as (in theory) the easiest TO balance. They have many steps to teching that provide a multi faced approach to finding the right timing for everything. In the enemd you don't pay more or less for a unit/ ability if it comes with teching. It just comes sooner or later based on where in the teching it's unlocked.

I like the spirit but hard no

I don't mind the hetz but I can see why people don't like it- to get the best out of it you will need to support it, which is markedly different than the other flame vehicles (wasp/FHT come soon enough they can eek by without it, kv-8/croc comes late enough it can have durability) but the hetz is in a n odd timing where AT is around but not so long that it should bounce shells.... However it's very commander grants the grey horde with smoke nades (assuming the okw player might decide to NOT pick the absolutely easy "improve DPS at all ranges" upgrade and instead chose to lower their long range DPS and trade their "none of the drawbacks of a molotov" molotov for a stick grenade to get access to smoke) smoke and hetz is great but I mean... You get flame rounds for the leig and throwers for sturms so... It's kinda overkill because it hits too soon or is too squishy. Idk

You forgot to mention the part, where cons are much worse in actual combat and can't trade efficiently vs anything without one of their weapon upgrades, while pios have target size and DPS perfectly in line with all other engineer squads around their price.

Not to Mention like... Molotov and AT nades are absolutely extra-the price paid directly inflates the cost of cons as it does nothing else. Rifle nades for grens are locked behind vet, molotovs are EXTRA. You build 4 cons and get molotovs those cons don't cost 240mo they cost 280mp. Strap in the snare and suddenly your 240 mp initial cost covers a lot less.