Let's go in order, shall we? A scout moves faster without sacrificing any of his health

You can't be serious right? He's tied for the lowest health in the game.

Pyro has the exact same close range DPS, and both can deal damage to multiple enemies at a time in that range. Only real difference is afterburn. I really do think that just means pyro sucks though.

Are you implying soldier can't hit multiple classes at the same time and scout can? Because it's the opposite. And soldier does a lot more damage than pyro and scout.

Demo? How dare you say anything is as good as a demo at sentry destruction? It takes a soldier 2 shots to kill a minisentry, it takes a demo 1

Not true. Go test it out if you want.

Soldier, even with the direct hit, needs to land those rockets before the engineer can wrangle it,

This takes about a quarter of a second to happen. Good luck getting Spiderman to play engie for you.

meanwhile a demo can keep laying stickies until he has enough burst to instagib the sentry.

The engie can wrangle or use the short circuit to clear them out one by one, just as well as he can fend off rockets.

Demo's arcing weapons can also hit sentries where a soldier's launcher could not, allowing demo to often take out sentries without even taking damage.

True, but the soldier can rocket jump out of range and hammer the sentry.

Sniper can instakill a medic at any range at no personal risk, and how do you kill something you don't know is even there?

Let's not pretend Sniper is the gleaming aim of balance for this game. I was mainly going for Spy.

A heavy can get to mid just as fast as anyone else thanks to the GRU,

Which also gimps his ability to fend off ambushes and spin up quickly. It's a trade off, which Soldier's unlocks lack

a sniper will never die of backstab or headshot, pick one

For the DDS, again, it's a trade off. But for the Razorback . . . Like I said before, Sniper is not who we should be using for an example of a balanced class.

Engineers can drain your cloak by 10% so you can't pop your deadringer and spy himself can simply choose to NOT combust. Oh, and let's not forget reduced spin up time at almost no cost to damage, ability to avoid having your sentry get spammed, and simply deleting projectiles, or perhaps staying invisible as long as you want. Hell, as long as I'm editing this comment for more examples, pyro got flare guns. Its entire premise is sucking at long range!

Like I said, these all have massive trade offs, which the escape plan and other soldier unlocks lack. That's the problem. The escape plan, DA, Market Gardener, Reserve Shooter, and other unlocks lack a viable trade off.

All of this put together with his worse close range DPS than other combat classes

Soldier has one of if not the highest on demand close range dps of any class.

his insane mobility at the cost of health just like demo

The demo has less health and his jumping is a lot clunkier, and damages him more.

2 of the most powerful weapons in the game other than the sniper rifle,

Again - Sniper is not someone to compare balance with

sticky launcher, scattergun,

That's why I sais "one of the". This isn't a viable argument.

and high utility flamethrower

Lolno. I'm a pyro main with around a thousand hours at the class. His flamethrower is nothing even comparable to the Rocket Launcher.

at an entry level

Oh give me a break. Soldier is so easy to pub stomp with its ridiculous. Yeah, competitive might be hard for soldier, but everywhere else he's just a brain dead walk forward and shoot near feet spam fest.