1) No, no it doesn't, why do you think it does???
Because it will be plain better, especially if there will be no (less) EP cost. I suspect rockslide is already better but having both gives some useful versatility.
2) OK, and they can't make a hard counter, and we certainly can't counter it before they field it, and deploying more Ravens isn't going to magically make them more successful, since we only ever send one out per UFO
Deploying more of something, makes it more successful. Numeric superiority works.
3) Um, aren't we having serious issues actually downing every UFO?
No. We don't. We have issues with their fighter. We can relatively easily shoot down their unescorted light UFOs.
4)If they kill the UFOs, there will be no ground battle, and we don't often have enough Ravens to be wasted on ground support
How would better missiles help us during the last battle turn? It is likely that they'll repeat this kind of distribution (and avoid Europe this time) or go for 2-3 escorted missions. Our tactical flexibility remains low. Design tried to fix that by getting more VP, no luck, we need something to improve our tactical flexibility.
5) I really am not concerned with your thoughtless salt, Strongpoint. That revision restored our ability to kill things, meaning it was certainly not wasted, and was indeed a good plan.
Thoughtless is a borderline insult, you know? Rockslide is useful long term (I am unsure about short term because there are a good chance that we would shot down that light UFOs anyway) but that revision could be used for other things including better revision of the missile. If some turn had positive effect it doesn't mean that other turns couldn't have better effects. And let's not forget about that 8
radically improved our sensor tech (and the unfinished TAV)
It isn't a result of the wording of the revision. It didn't try to do anything like this. It is a result of a nat crit success. On average roll it would be a harm missile that tries to lock on the signal of ECM with no useful technology for other fields
1) No, no it won't. Missiles have NOT replaced guns in modern air combat because there are always situations where more little killing things is better than one big killing thing. Well, that and they're not always the best at actually tracking targets, and can sometimes be unreliable at close range.
2) No, deploying more of something that doesn't work (Deploying additional single Ravens to hit single UFOs)....continues to not work. I don't think we'll be likely to get a significant enough cost decrease to just swamp every UFO mission that hasn't already landed in UFOs.
3) And now they know that, and they may very well bring something to deal with them. Or they won't. Again, can't predict it, and we've had mediocre results against their light UFOs before as well. So why don't we just take the option that makes every single encounter better for us, instead of only improving the encounters we can send multiple Ravens to?
4) Because certainly dead is much better than only mostly dead?
5) Useful short term, and long term, and every other term, because it is a missile that intends to do more damage without reduction to other qualities. And no, I'm not going to forget about that 8. I am going to be incredibly glad that we used it on something that gave us such wonderful bonuses. I'm going to be even more pleased that we did a revision that didn't fail when we needed it to succeed (Facing enemy ECM like that, with so many UFOs and without the Rockslide, would've been disastrous).
As for thoughtless, yes, that was provocative when it probably didn't need to be. However, you need to let the Rockslide go. It was a good call on us, regardless of the roll that that revision phase had.