Expertly stated and what an amazing first contribution! Welcome to the Forum!!
I played with some family members and my father unfortunately developed the idea that the game revolves too much around chance rather than tactics, due to the dice rolls and card play. While true, I perfectly see what you are saying, that it’s all about maximizing your chances with the non-optimal start that you get (cards and units alike). I feel the same way.
This asymmetry takes on another dimension for me when I compare my results to the online play-through statistics. Just recently we had a great discussion about the Hellfire Pass scenario where for me it was always a blood bath for the British. As it turned out, it seems most people won with the British! I’m really looking forward to replay it just to try out the tactics that are mentioned in the link so I can see the difference for myself!
Just as a final thought, I’ve found that the asymmetry can be disrupted (or amplified) through the use of the Combat Cards. I think it adds so much flavor to the game that I tend to use them when I get the chance 
Only 6 votes got lost, which is not too bad taking into consideration that only those questions got reseted. To be honest I’m getting a bigger amount of feedback that I’d ever imagined possible so I’m still pretty happy!
I have personally not tried the online version so I don’t really understand the jargon (don’t know what those gold ingots mean).
I’ve heard that there are bugs that won’t be fixed because they are not developing it anymore. I hope they open-source it some day, since developers could take over and fix those issues.