The people at SD aren't stupid...seems like a good acquisition to me.
Thats utter rubbish...Shafer is the one who wanter One Unit per Tile...he is the one who wanted to combine a tactical game like Panzer General with a grand strategic game that is Civ...he is the one who used Hex tiles (because thats what a game from the 1990's had - i.e. Panzer General)...he is responsible for the game - he was the LEAD designer...he is the one to blame!
Eh, opinions vary, right? I think 1UPT, hexes, and attempting to add strategic combat into Civ was the best decision ever. I've always found combat in Civ to be horribly lacking, cheesy, and exploitive, and considered the majority of players "beating" civ on higher difficulties to be exploiting (taking advantage of AI flaws, poor game mechanics, ideal map conditions, etc).
If the AI had been anything but ultra stupid it could've been the best thing ever (combat in civ 5).
Some other elements of the game were kinda meh, like resource placement and bonuses that kinda took away pizazz (going overboard on balancing) and balance in general was kind of wonky, but you can't be sure to blame that on design when you have Steam, a parent company, crappy testing and beta processes, and deadlines that prevent refinement.