It appears that this circle is becoming vicious
There really does not seem to be any disagreement here, just a lot of talking through each other.
I think you both make valid cases. In the event of a massive show down between two alliances then damage has it. In the normal running of the game range wins every time.
Because big show downs are rare, and overwhelming the weak is commonplace, I will personally stick with range.
The resource case is valid, but I am still not sure that it offsets the first strike nature of 2:1 range.