Making the Russians better

Interesting discussion, Mark. I favour your initial option 2. That is, making Russian infantry all four blocks to begin with and removing a few. This way the Russians are more on a par with other nations, but have a few brittle units.

I'd be very interested to hear what Mr Borg thinks, though.

after 6 years here, and 9 years on BGG forum, I doubt to hear from RB
boardgamegeek.com/thread/972216/playing-russians

even if he did comment,I'm sure it would be along the lines of it is your game, play it as you feel is right.
which is true, but that does not encourage uniformity which is important in tournaments and comparing results.

We have tried the larger Russian units several times (Eylau, Friedland) and the games are much more balanced and makes the Russians much tougher, which is what you would expect. We are doing Austerlitz (LGB) soon so interesting to see how that pans out.