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The point is that the standard you are expecting doesn't make sense for the reasons you're criticizing it, because if that were the case it would apply to units across roles, too.
If you're arguing that things like training and equipment shouldn't create a gap between units of different tiers, then there'd be no reason for them to create a gap between units of different roles.
Putting the logic of it aside to focus on just the game mechanics, the higher tier units cost more to produce and have higher upkeep. If there was mimimal gap between them, why would you ever get higher tier units when you could sustain 3 units of any given tier for the cost of 2 units in the next tier?
In your example: The Anvil Guard is your basic military, your everyday "Joe".
The Bastions are either veterans or handpicked warriors with above average fortitude and skill.
Exemplars are a combined profile of monster+rider and is a tome unit, so probably supercharged by magic as well.
Ranking is just a way to reward players who can keep their units alive, as well as providing more ways to improve your army.
As for balance:
Low tier units are cheaper, faster to produce, require less experience to rank up and have less upkeep. That means that they can be fielded in massive numbers, and that you can get those armies out early in the game to gain momentum. An army of tier 1-2 units that are fully ranked are powerful enough to stand up to fresh tier 3s, meaning you can keep the momentum going for longer.
You could make the argument that you can at most bring 3 armies into a fight against 3 enemy armies, so the more elite of the groups will win every time, but nothing stops you from making wave attacks with low tier troops to weaken your opponent and use magic to deplete their "elite" armies before your main armies arrive.
In fact, that is what makes the Undead so much fun right now.
But also, tier 2 and 3 are generally going to make up the bulk of your troops through out the game. The tier IV units are not nearly as dominant as they once were.
Not sure what you are going to expect here?
If you could devote everything to making units and rushing the opponents down without worrying about diverting a portion of the economy to progression and upgrades.
It was SIGNIFICANTLY better in Planetfall. Probably someone could expect it ro be similar to PF balancing since it was latest Triumph game
Master of Magic low tiers kinda feel exclusive to the warlord/halfling slingers but you do still make them just for the 0 upkeep spearman to get the police tax rate on cities.
AoW 1 - low tiers are fun and some of single scenario levels have ONLY tier 2 cities. I still remember Mass Nymph / Lady of Pain seduce and feeling good stealing heroes even if 6/8 girls died in the attempt.
Elephant and halfling pony rider fun on their own too.
AoW 2 low tiers felt bad because defenders always went first + cast magic on first turn of combat + on high rolls could one shot them + their magic sphere didn't help because cosmic spray was a generic spell. Even if they had low casting points, ballista etc could also 1 hit them on high rolls.
AoW 3 they're fun even up to the gold landmarks but the broken economy made it too easy to tech up for both the player and the emperor AI.
Planetfall tier 1-2 are incredibly fun and can be extended through an entire campaign with unit mods and production bonuses. This was partly because of weak AI/weak neutral stacks and partly because the T4 are genuinely overcosted. One of the biggest change is a much flatter %HP per unit tier than AoW 3 and AoW 4. T3 have preference advantages in multiplayer and even in single player the base status resistance feels great (much harder to fix with unit mods compared to damage and armor)
In AoW 4 I prefer high tiers similarly to AoW 3... They're affordable fairly early with practice and the stat difference per tier is quite large. Even when the damage of two units is the same I even value the status resistance inherent with unit tier.
That meant taking defensive racial traits, stacking health bonuses on them from Hardy + Tomes, boosting their defences with positive effects from Support units + spells/staff enchants, constant regeneration/heals, Mighty Meek to increase their damage vs. high tier since it's on the way to Tome of Sanctuary for Keeper's Mark. With Keeper's Mark when one or many of your T1 units get "killed" the first time, they res on the spot at 1 health and can't die or attack for 1 turn.
Or anything that gives Slip Away for similar mechanics (Except I don't think it makes them immune to damage like Keepers Mark). When combined with massive sustain and effective health from high defences, this allows your stacks of T1 frontline armies able to go up against mythic stacks if you can bring those T1 back to full health easily every turn... mostly (it depends). :p
It's the same idea on how one makes Player characters in MMOs, RPGs and ARPGS able to go up against insane unfair difficulty Bosses with millions of HP compared to players with 100 HP or 5K health or whatever. Sustain + Effective Health + high Resist/Armour/Evasion + on death gimmicks + Good damage = victory.
I just had a blast with a Plant+Fey Nature/Faithful Order Reavers with Chosen Uniters and Silver Tongue. My army stacks were three T1 Harriers, 2-3 Overseers and 0-1 support hero/ruler. The only problem was that if you fought manually you would have to auto most of the fights unless you want to take an hour buffing things yourself every turn start! It was also a great time to go get a drink when you knew you messed up hitting the manual button while the AI played out everything! :D :D
The upkeep of totally OP Overseer/Harriers was like 10 gold and 8 Mana each (12 gold and 10 Mana for Overseers actually) and I had about 6-7 stacks of them and could have had another 6-7 stacks on top of that and still have 100 gold and mana income. I would lose maybe 1 harrier per fight. It was fun and my best Reaver build yet!
That being said, Tier I units can absolutely be useful in moderation and within specific roles late game, particularly if you have certain spells and such.
Tell that a wizard with his resurrection spells, or a warlock with armageddon, or a necromancer with reanimation - of course T7 was the best unit, backed up by superior game breaking spells. To get there you took any free/low cost chaff you could find. Sometimes T6 was the best unit, think about efreets with armageddon, they were very fast, too and speed was key for army movement on the global map, it was based on the units, too.
You could have thousands of skeletons, but they moved slowly and are best as guards or support heroes doing logistics and guard some important town.
Leader and elephant ram rush with Azracs almost every game, i do not get the part with the pony - its a solid T1 but with no wall crushing so it does not matter, its just xp leader fodder like a regular T2 Cavalry. Walls could not be penetrated without pass wall, wallcrushing and flying, it only was changed in AoW2 to be attackable by any unit.
AoW1 is a special case. Low gold and almost non existant mana income. City size was fixed so where unit tiers as a consequence - your hero stack was also limited, because the gold upkeep increased with each hero level try to afford that in a game with almost no gold income and scorcher A.I. or worse PvP when everyone razed structures for good(hard to rebuild in AoW1+2) just to spawn more neutral guards to get more xp for their leaders - in the end units are just cannon fodder for Leaders, that could kill 6 stack of T1-2 units without much problems - except those where ballistas.
There is a T1, who was an exception- its the shadow demon bombard, it works like a catapults firebomb - just uses death damage which does 50% more damage on cursed units. It can be far away from the defenders and shoot over them reaching any target in the small walled town, there are also good in attacking or defending bridges due to their long range and area attack and high damage - maybe the best T1, until there are other shadow demons or undead, which are immune to death damage.
The syron lightning catcher and snowscaper were great as defenders in a walled city and could reliably stop PvP rushes.
Easy but very slow compared to SM, too many hours were spent at the global map starring at research and slow movements - no haste and explorer on the global map.
The low tiers units were a bit improved with way more ranks - but T4 Transports were removed entirely, that could carry low Tier units at higher speeds over the global map + support them. AoW3 was a step back in logistics, while AoW2+ did logistics best.
It was in particular fun, when you dared to move with a stack of heroes and 4 mods on them close to an enemy base, just to see your single stack surrounded by 6 stacks of T1-T2 with mods shooting from all sides at you.
Move T4 to T4 tomes and T5 to T5 tomes. That said i think both unit tiers need a buff to make their cost apply to logic - as its currently the case, the game can easily be won on the hardest dfficulties and considering PvP just with low tier units and low tier tomes.
T3 units are allready too dominating, since they literally cost no imperium upkeep, but are very effective with high ranks, support heroes and several unit enchantments.