Yeah, I know I've been a big catastrophiser lately. BUT, it's another situation in which MO ends up in an uncomfortable position. And I feel that MO is on a streak of uncomfortable positions. Add all up, as vicen85 did in his first post on this thread, and you got plenty of arguments to justify the catastrophising.
In the end, MO are better off than a lot of other Sectorals. But I do understand how things stack up overall. These end up being Scenarios you probably need to specifically build for.
Are the TO FO OS that dreadfully needed though? In most of the rare games I played one, I could have played a BF instead and would have gain a trooper able to pose a real threat to my opponent. Might be my meta exceedingly good at dealing with infiltrators or something like that but outside of sacrificing himself to try to kill a Moran or a Chasseur or any speedbumper like that, they strictly do nothing for me. I aknowledge that on paper and in the void, they are gorgeous. But I'm not sure you need one in every list in this sectorial. We have a lot of excellent tools IMHO to do the vanguard job outside of the TO OS.
There's nothing dreadfully needed on Infinity. BUT, Sgt TO FO is the only way on actual meta to on few orders active/control/open ITS condition. All the other options need a lot of orders, and on MO you Should have 10-Support Group (doctor, Sierra, Warcor, etc), against 20 orders of most of armies. At end of Game yo had Max 30 orders, your enemies has Max 60 orders. The Sgt TO FO allways be our best specialist. Normaly on HD on Turn 1 (best safe hability of Infinity).
Spiral, Onyx and Tunguska are really screwed when it comes to the liaison officier. I wouldn't say there's a lot of them, but those three are definitely worse off than MO I'd say.
Thorakitai SMG FO not good enough for you? Onyx has pretty much the same problem as MO. Unless you really want to pay 50 points for a Combi Lt who could be Joan.
At least SP pays 13 points for a decent profile. Maybe it's not an auto include in SP lists but the price is payable. Onyx is completely screwed. The Malignos has all the problems the TOFOOS has plus the fact that it costs 9 more points. Spiral has the Clipsos, basically a cheaper TOFOOS but that's it. Not a good situation for them. Onyx is screwed as I've mentioned before. Tunguska has Grenzers and Spektrs. Forget the Spektr as it has all the issues TOFOOS, Malignos and Clipsos have. But the Grenzer is a solid, linkable unit with a somewhat affordable price. On the other hand, have you checked Varuna or O-12?
Varuna has Fusiliers, Kamaus, Zulu-Cobras, Patsy and Croc Men, which suffer the TO issues O-12 has Sirius, Kappas, Omegas and Razors. Razors also suffer the TO issues. Varuna has 4 excellent choices, O-12 has 3. Compare this situation to Onyx or MO and the difference is so big it is almost impossible not to bitch about it.
My point in the comparison is, there are plenty of other Sectorials who aren't great for this so perhaps this isn't the big problem for MO it's being made out to be.
There's one and it's Onyx. Who isn't screwed sideways in listbuilding otherwise and will be happy to forgo the LO.
And Steel Phalanx, and Spiral, and Tunguska, and Tohaa... But, sure... ONLY MO have issues with this.
