Profile of Hannibal

Any particular reason you ignore rifles(you know, the only unit in game penals can be directly compared to in relation to scaling) vanila and with dual bar every single time when you make this kind of comparison?

If it because it makes your post completely random and pointless?

How are Riflemen the only unit directly comparable to Penals?

I'm still pushing for caps on the numbers of specific units one can field. Ergo: One arty unit, a limited number of TDs, etc. This would help deal with some of the "Spam" that can happen in teamgames.

I still like the idea of team-wide caps on certain things, but this is very unlikely due to players likely being unhappy that they can't get their doctrinal IS2, for example, due to another player having a Pershing.

It would be a way better approach to promote proper counters instead of limiting units and forcefully "promoting" combined arms. If an Axis players wants 3 Panthers he should be free to do so, as long as Allies have the ability to either counter Panthers or mitigate their effectiveness by focusing down the infantry. Limiting units would heavily limit team play as well since players could not "specialize". And sometimes outright kill it, mixed Allied factions could then - your suggestion - only have 1 Katy per Soviet player on the field OR force USF and UKF players into a fistful of doctrines.

Apart from that, there are also a LOT of practical considerations: What do we limit? Only high tier tanks (like currenty heavies)? ALL vehicles? How do we deal with overlapping units, e.g. both Axis tank destroyers? Do they share a common counter? Do Panthers and StuGs count the same? What about mediums: are 3 mediums already too much or considered an acceptable build? Do we limit infantry as well? Maximum of 4 main lines? Do PGrens/Obers count? USF officers? Is USF not allowed to back tech if they already have 4 mainlines out? What do we do with doctrinal infantry in general? Maximum of 2 support weapons per type? If so, what is the exact reason that I need to 2 ATGs plus StuG and mortar instead of 3 ATGs and Ostwind if I want that?

We'd either have to set these caps high enough so they would probably not matter at all or so low that there will be only a couple of viable builds by default (not even talking about the meta here).

There is no reason for that. If someone wants to pull off a surprisal weird ass strategy, let him do it. The only question is if the opponent not only has the skill, but also the tools to set up a counter-strategy in time. As long as he has the tools available, there will be no need for any unit caps.

Before this gets out of hand:
I am not really arguing for removing repair from pioneers.

decrewed weapon teams aswell...

You could always take them and then repair. Or just salvage. To be honest I have never seen someone repairing a decrewed gun on the field. Only an abandoned vehicle.

Opel Blitz.

I'll give you that one. Open Blitz is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

I believe the problem stems from mid game lack of scaling.
You just can not have mainline inf that is reliable and relevant across whole game without weapon upgrade.
We've strolled this road for years with conscripts, now we're going for a 2nd lap with penals and their mid and late game viability.

Lack of upgrade to keep infantry scaling through early mid game and extreme over reliance on T-70 to jump back into the game once everyone else starts rolling out infantry weapon upgrades is a direct reason why T1 feels bad on the long run as even if SU-76 might be a good option right now, as long as there is no infantry scaling to fend of the pressure, it will always be T-70 and in turn, T1 lack of AT reliability and AI scaling.

They can work without weapon upgrades, Penals did for ages (better to say a year but they were still meta). They were even so good that they had to be nerfed. However even old Conscripts were not as bad as people made them out to be. The main issue is that units without weapon upgrade are harder to replace once you loose them. Penals start out strong, don't necessarily need an upgrade. Conscripts on the other hand start quite weak like other infantry, but previously their only way to get stronger was veterancy. That is okay for the initially build Conscripts, but not for replacement units. Hence why Conscripts get their late game upgrade. Mobilized reserves did not change the first 10-12 minutes of the game at all, still Conscripts have become the new meta over Penals.

T1 is an additional strain on Penals. But I think with the fact that LVs are way more popular compared to two years ago and the SU76 being nerfed, the way to T4 has just become too long and Penal builds have become more risky.

Literally no one expects them to work independently and spamming either alone is a sure way to lose the game - they were independent exclusively when they were op and, that clearly was not intended given how they no longer are.
It was always about paying for their own cost and scaling into late game for both and both sucked hard until they started getting mandatory changes. To not see that is to be in denial about state of these units.

Penals are expected to work on their own, and at the very least independently from T2. You can throw a Con into a Penal build but it does not fix the actual issue.