I agree with a lot of what you said, but what about returning/new players who have trouble beating the AI? We STILL have this in 2008.
What might makes sense is if the attacking missions were significantly harder than the defense missions.
Do these missions AI-strip? Haven't tested them yet.
In PvP situations these scripts should revert to basic combat and strip all AI except planets/bases.
For the ED versions the defending missions should be set significantly easier than the attacking,
for the XC versions it's Pesty's call - I'll tone things up/down as desired.
dave