first: armor and guns of tanks in cmbo have many numbers, but interesting is only one point: enough or not? so it can take only the values 1 or 0.
cheap tanks without real high velocity are worthless, what do want to do with a burning wreck of a cheap tank, when you could still have a living, expensive tank.
most light vehicles, which could try to flank out enemies heavy armor, can be killed by 37mm and 40mm aa-guns. so you need tanks to deal with enemies heavies frontally.
as german i use: tiger 2 (kingtiger), hetzer, psw 234/3
as us: jumbo76, hellcat, greyhound, m8hmc
as uk: churchill 8, daimler
so you have the superiority at the point of the battlefield, which is the most important to you.