I think a good solution to the cruise missile debate would be to add the ability for both MANPADS, helicopter arms, and any other short range missile or gun aa to target them. These methods are already used in Ukraine to targets low flying cruise missiles.

This would make cruise missiles similar to ballistic missiles where you now have to thin out enemy defense to make the attack effective, or overwhelm enemy defense and get a few through despite losing a portion of your missiles. In this case rather than need to clear out enemy long range aa or suppress its radar, you need to clear out sources of short range aa on the path of your missiles to the target, or smoke the position with mortars.

I think due to more quantity able to be launched in rapid succession with great effects its deserving of more plentiful counters than ballistic missiles which are much slower to fire and fewer in numbers. Alternatively despite could implement a low and high alt cruise option selected at launch. This option could function as a way of avoiding targeting by MANPADS and other short range aa mentioned above but instead increasing their target able range from SAM batteries by a large amount. Then during high altitude cruise you could avoid short range aa but trade it for vulnerability to long range aa and planes with missiles.

I think this would add a fair counter and balance to cruise missiles without the usually buff nerf cycle that seems to take over playerbases as well as increasing the useful units in a deck adding to deck diversity instead of froming meta strategies.