I ran some rudimentary tests a few months ago and found the range and projectile speed of T3 MAA (UEF) to make it the best at point defense against strats, though they do struggle against massed lower tiers due to overkill. Looking at the stats for the Cybran t3 MAA I agree they are terrible and wonder what's going on there.
t2 MAA is also about 1/3 the cost of its static equivalent for a ~35% reduction in DPS, while t3 is slightly more expensive (and much slower to build) for an equivalent DPS reduction (though, as previously mentioned, it's capable of stopping strats from getting a bomb on target at a much greater radius--SAMs simply won't make their first hit until the bomber is almost directly over them).
I think some key questions are:
- How feasible should an all-ground AA defense be? (not very, I'm thinking, and it isn't now)
- If the answer to the above is no, what use cases should ground AA be effective (in terms of cost, maneuverability, and the value of what it's protecting)? Ex: T2 MAA, and T3 MAA especially, currently do a pretty decent job at fending off gunship attacks on massed units, and that seems like a role that should be preserved.
My suggestion: reducing ASF fuel from the current 16 minutes(!) to something much lower would require splitting up the deathball or risk getting caught flat footed when they all gas out at the same time.
tl;dr: fuel is an underutilized mechanic that could solve this problem without throwing AA out of balance