Yes, and you generally need to kill 3 or 4 engies in order to make the early expenditure worth it. The exception are maps like White Fire where killing 1 engie could basically lose you the game.
When first bomber is so inefficient you can kill every engie and still be behind, it's not an option to consider. The only thing to be doing when you seriously want to win is land spam and then decide whether 3rd or 4th air is best for you. That is pure greed as the game devolved into who gets those land facs up faster.
The point is putting first bomber at a cost where it can throw your opponent off and result in a game loss when they are incapable of countering cheese while also existing in the head of people that are going for some sandboxed reclaim bo. It can't be so efficient that it pays off after 1 or 2 engie kills on every map, otherwise it becomes standard operating procedure to do it because there is really minimal opportunity cost loss.
Zock balanced it by making it so inefficient it is almost never a viable move, now it got moved to be between Zock change and 2013 first bomber.
Should also say I have no idea if first bomber needs slight adjustments one way or the other, but I definitely do thing it is much healthier for the game to be closer to where it is now than what it used to be post 2016.
