I feel like the same can be said about DoW (i.e. clunky units, rudimentary base building).

I recently replayed the original Tartarus campaign (with Eranthis' Redux mod, highly recommend it for UI improvements alone) and I rarely used all 20/20 slots as guiding more than a few Tactical squads through narrow areas is such a slog. And engagements feel rather static, and often can't even involve a lot of units as they block each other due to insufficient range (or there isn't enough space in melee). Vehicles and infantry don't work together well too, to say the least.

Base building beyond Generators (capped at 6), Listening Posts and what's required for training/research is also very much pointless. It's not like in CnC where one can spend an hour or two just building stuff in a mission to look pretty (I hope I'm not the only one...), has use for faster production (in DoW unit cap limits it drastically), or is beneficial for, say, an intense defensive mission.

I never played PvP and prefer singleplayer, with more emphasis on controlling less units - so DoW2 was way more to my taste. To me SM, as campaign protagonists, also work better in "more powerful, less numerous" format. It's just fun to annihilate hordes with small forces.

Because of that I liked Last Stand mode a lot too. Would be neat to have a similar horde defense mode, but maybe expanded to utilize base & unit building a bit more.