Tank, the title of this post sucks. Otherwise, spot on.
Grinding troops is a serious grind. It's just too high a bar.
Buying troops from the S&D pool might be a better way of going about things. Or create a new "recruit" pool like S&D but it can't be raised with PP.
Then again, overhauling the entire recruitment and gear-buying system is better in my book. Managing armies with spreadsheets has gone too damned far, when you have at least 200 item choices, multiplied by 8 for the range of -4 to +3. Jesus, what a nightmare.