Hmm.. on second thought, I guess I was expecting AoW3 to be more like Wesnoth with a strategic map. Wesnoth pulled off many different varieties of units right and spoiled my expectations of fantasy TBS unit types.
The unique race units defined the races in AoW 1 and 2. The goblins were weaker, but had poison. Archons could vertigo, d. elves had life drain. My sister had a thing for life drain and web, so she picked out dark elves most the time. I liked ranged units, so I liked the normal elves for their starting Marksmanship. Or if I wanted to harrass my siblings and play at a handicap, I'd go goblins for the cave crawling and laughably bad low level units.
MoM had a somewhat different approach IIRC because it took a lot of effort to unlock certain units, even though many of them were the same.
Moving from AoW1 to AoW2 was a shock mostly because they dropped the 'dungeon crawl' style maps and replaced it with the same style of maps where everyone attacked a central position. More tactics, faster to go through, but dropped the atmosphere. AoW3 looks like it's going for a Total War style of tactics... more about positioning and using the environment rather than using different unit types.
I guess I'll just wait around for AoW3 to get an expansion and fall into the bargain bin. Will just play Wesnoth and Conquest of Elysium until then.