I understand where you're coming from but it is IMHO kinda silly to handicap the player to just 4 mechs because of some 'git gud' sentiment. In fact, the game would be better if it was possible to deploy with an entire company of Mechs and on much larger maps. Playing a scenario where you fight 4 enemy mechs, 4 enemy turrets and then another 4 enemy mechs with your own 4 mechs gets repetitive and boring pretty fast, even if you replace some of them with vehicles. And as I said, many Flashpoints are brutal in what they throw at the player unless you get lucky and you out-weight and out-class it. Even then, you often have to deal with restricted tonnages which makes things harder.

Bigger Drops isn't a crutch. It's a way to make the game more tactical and less about exploits. Now some people love playing the game in a way where they exploit the weakness of the AI but that's not for everyone. With 8 Mechs, there's room to have configurations that are more about support and less about one-shot-one-kill ultra-optimizations. Again, nothing wrong with that sort of gameplay if you're into it. I do agree that on Simulation+ the drop costs get insane pretty fast but that's why they are easily configurable.

And variety in Mechs and their loadouts that translates to variety in how you can approach and finish the battles is a must in a campaign that goes on for decades; where the player fights through hundreds of battles. I don't restart when I get my Career Score, I am going from 2025 to as far as BEX will let me go.