Rake

Yes!  Pick your favorite time frame and buy at least one to check out all the features
 For modern RTS, nothing tops SB, IMNSHO.  That said, it's a totally different system.  I do not play CM in RT just for all the reasons Mord and others have mentioned.  I have only in the last few months really started to pick up SB and learn the game.  I'm still not fully capable with everything that SB allows.  I have only CMBS to blame for even getting me into that game.  I never had any desire to play any other time period than WW II before I picked up CMBS.  Now, it's been several years since I've played anything but CMBS and SB.  When I feel like an infantry fight with some armor, I play CMBS.  When I want to mess with armor and blow ****e up, it's SB.
SB will never replace CM as sburke says even though I find myself playing it more these days.  I've owned all of the CM series since the night of the refreshing monkeys.  I've has SB for a couple of years, but put it down for a good while due to the learning curve.  Now that I've made the decision to learn the simulation, I've been playing with it almost exclusively for several months.
I own many hundreds of dollars worth of computer wargames.  Exactly 4 games rest on my hard drive (if you count the entire series of CM and Campaign Series as one game).  Two are 3D & two are top-down; Two are RT (3 if you count CM as RT, I don't); two are igo-ugo They are:
Combat Mission (I still have CMBB on my HD)         2. Steel Beast Pro PE
       3. Campaign Series (JT's and ME, not too interested in the new Viet Nam game, but I may still purchase it)
       4. Flashpoint Campaigns Red Storm
I also own many of Tiller's PC and Modern titles...  they just haven't made it onto my newest computer yet and I only have so much time.  The four above can fill that up easily.  Each game tickles a different fancy.
BUT, to the OP, I do not believe you can go wrong with any of the CM games.  I've been enjoying them for over twenty years.
 
Rake Out...
 

The graphics were nice when CMBN was released... What Aris, TaL, Juju, Egger, Marco, Mord, Rambler (and everyone else who's handles I cannot recall) have done for this game is incredible.

Now if the only the colors on photobucket looked like they do on my monitor

Blind fanboyism at it's best. Not very "grown up" in my book...

Really when customers paid $120 in advance they have no right to be notified or updated when they might actually receive the product?? You really should rethink that!!

To be honest it's getting to the point where I'm thinking that I ought to request a refund because I could spend the money on something else that I can enjoy right now, not in 6 months time. I don't think that's an unreasonable regret on the part of the customer either!

I'm with ya, Bil.  Whenever I watch a youtube video where the stock icons are used, I have little idea what units I'm seeing.  I use a combination of yours and ones I've done myself.
I just found this aar... Thanks for doing this and all you do for the hobby.  I didn't play CMSF1 much.  At the time, I didn't care much for modern equipment (I really didn't know much about it to tell the truth); it was WW II all the time.  I only bought the base game, and that only much later on after most of the bugs had been worked out.  I bought Black Sea on a whim and since then have played mostly cold war and later in all the games I play

Done...  before I  even got to your post. Trolls like this are a major reason why I rarely post on any forum.  The anonymity of the keyboard gives far too many a presumed right to be asshats  obnoxious.  I'm far from thin-skinned, but I doubt he's spoken with too many people in that vein

Done...  before I  even got to your post. Trolls like this are a major reason why I rarely post on any forum.  The anonymity of the keyboard gives far too many a presumed right to be asshats  obnoxious.  I'm far from thin-skinned, but I doubt he's spoken with too many people in that vein

Done...  before I  even got to your post. Trolls like this are a major reason why I rarely post on any forum.  The anonymity of the keyboard gives far too many a presumed right to be asshats  obnoxious.  I'm far from thin-skinned, but I doubt he's spoken with too many people in that vein

Done...  before I  even got to your post. Trolls like this are a major reason why I rarely post on any forum.  The anonymity of the keyboard gives far too many a presumed right to be asshats  obnoxious.  I'm far from thin-skinned, but I doubt he's spoken with too many people in that vein

FULDA GAP!!!

I am "allowed" to area fire.  But unless I have a hard contact previously and lost it, I generally don't.  It just isn't that effective.
If I had a full spot there a minute ago but it has gone away and I suspect that is just the men going heads down, area fire at the old spot is perfectly reasonable.  
It is also effective enough, often enough, that I will spend the ammo to do it, though generally only for a minute, not for extended periods.  Ammo is too useful to blow on a possibly dead target.
 
Recon by fire is something I only use when there is quite limited enemy side cover and I think I can deduce where they have to be.  Sometimes high ammo weapons like "target light" from a tank to use its MGs only, about it.
 
As for runners, no I don't "simulate" them.  The troops are hard enough to corral without such additional work.  Sometimes I still find I have to run HQ teams hither and yon to get spots or put forces in command etc.  Works.
 
As for the brittleness of infantry, if they go stationary and rally whenever shot at, and someone else moves off, they can absorb plenty of punishment in my experience.  It helps to have steppe terrain / high grass to hide in, and undulating ground and such, to be sure.  It works because the enemy will lose the spot and shift fire to still moving units.  Then the previously hit units get a few minutes of respite, to rally. The enemy rarely has enough firepower to kill a whole company at range.  To scare it sure, or to kill it close enough.  But by then spots happen and I can fire back.  As long as I spread around who is moving and don't push faster than the men rally = want to go, a couple of HMGs can't hold off a whole company of infantry in the long range envelope.
 
Good stealthy defenses can supplement a few HMGs with other weapons, though.  Mortars firing from defilade at units that go to ground; light FOs dropping artillery fire on any sizable group, snipers on top of the HMGs (even harder to see etc).  And if all of it is meant to draw the tanks forward to give ATGs side shots, sometimes tanks ahead won't solve the whole problem.  But just a couple of entrenched MGs vs a supported rifle company, no problem.  It is a standard drill one needs to learn, without needing to rely on great cover to get close.