Well, the delay thing, as it is now, brings another problem.
Say, I have an infantry and a panzer corps sitting in a province, facing a single infantry division. I order my infantry corps to attack the enemy division and beat the crap out of them. Then I order my panzer corps to exploit. While on the move, my panzer corps gets counter attacked by what is left from that allready beaten infantry division (assuming the previous fight lasted long enough, this is possible; if not, replace the beaten ID by a weak fresh one (for example a 1 Infantry regiment + 1 Aromred car batallion). Of course my fresh panzer corps runs all over this enemy, but because of the delay, will now sit 170+ hours doing nothing, waiting for the delay to pass. Then it starts moving again and again will be attacked by what is, in effect, a weak regiment and again it will sit for 170+ hours.
A force of basicly 2 Infantry regiments (and after some fights, with probably about as much fighting power as 2 batallions) can keep my panzer corps pinned down infinitely by alternating attacking.
Now, I don´t think the AI is capable of doing this, but if you are into multiplayer, woha!
I agree, that breakthrough was usually accomplished by infantry forces, and exploitation was the thing for the armor, but I don´t remember that Rommels or Guderians forces sat around in France in 1940 for a week after beating back a counterattack because, well, for whatever reason.
I haven´t played a whole lot of HOI3 (a few hours, only) because I got frustrated with the stupid AI (diplomacy and stuff) so I might be missing something essential in my above example, but I doubt it, from what I read at Paradox´ forum.
As for AE, yeah, ground combat was allways weak with this one, but I can live with it (I am more interrested in the naval/air war anyway)
Playing Japan against the AI, I can not confirm much of a bonus, however. Got my ass handed to me in china for rushing things
At sea, yeah, japan rules the waves for at least the first 6 months, but hey, that´s how it´s supposed to be. And even for the allied ai there are some silver linnen on the horizon (is this the correct phrase?) for example, when Boise singlehandedly clubbered one of my destroyer squadrons lead by a light cruiser
In the end, of course, you play whatever game suits you better.
Seems yours will be HOI3, while mine will be AE, so everyone is happy