Today: units have HP which is expensive and slow to repair (exceptions: high regen from upgrades and vet, air staging), and some units have shields which are free to repair.
Can we take inspiration from various other games and have both "core HP" and "armour", where only armour is fast and cheap to repair, and where "core HP" may affect a unit's performance?
I'm not sure how viable this is to implement on SupCom, but IMO it would be a much better incentive system for keeping units alive than the veterancy system.