Core problem with Strategus in any form for me is, the battles itself are not all that enjoyable. Honestly I prefer playing on EU_1 over a strat battle easily. The boring ass deathmatch is just meh, respawning anyway takes all of the epicness out of any game mode. 2 hours of running yourself into a deathtrap of a castle. I only play them for the xp really.
This might be crazy, but how about Strategus battles without respawning? Just like a regular mode of battle.
Everyone has one life. The maximum army size would be 60. Or 80 if the servers are feeling lucky. Make equipping these 60 soldiers cost the same as a 5k army. It's just way more tense and epic than just throwing tickets around like it's nothing. More like a warband vs warband feel than an army vs army. Alternatively, make tickets scale down so that every person is worth a certain amount of tickets while still having one life. So a 2000 vs 1000 battle means that one team gets 80 player slots and the other gets 40.
Strat battles are short, strat battles are exciting, strat battles are awesome. All I want you to ask is to think about this for a moment.