and they still lose to penal while paying more MP and munition, seems a bit contradictory for the price tag
290 vs 295+90 mun
2 free slot and upgrade viable vs 0 slot
make no sense really
You forgot about shitload of abilities for AT, AI and scouting vs a whooping fuck all+need of upfront investment+having to carry whole tier on their backs without support from ATGs or HMGs, both of which PFs enjoy without any issue.
PFs price comes from utility you get.
If they didn't had nades, at nades, flare, additional sight post upgrade then yeah, they would need to be cheaper/perform better for the cost.
Stop pretending PFs and penals have exact same army composition behind them and have equal amount of combat utility, because they clearly don't and again, they don't compete against penals for pop, they compete with volks, compare their performance and upgrades to volks, not penals.
Once again, its irrelevant what penals do, because OKW can't build penals.
Stop ignoring context of the army and unit PFs compete with in that army.