It feels like Starcraft 2 was the last traditional RTS; I suspect part of that is because other developers think their game wouldn't have a chance without competitive multiplayer as tight as SC2's.
That said, there's still some RTS games in the indie space / on Steam, like Homeworld: Deserts of something. But that one was ultimately disappointing overall.
The popularity of Starcraft confused me until I realized it was a really a "user interface game" rather than a strategy game. I mean, Starcraft 2 is still a strategy game, but if you were to propose changing the UI to enable more strategy, they wouldn't do that. The UI is the game, and once I understood that I understood Starcraft players better and was able to appreciate the game better.
It's hard for anyone to do a better Starcraft because it's a UI game based in technology of the time. We aren't going to get better at traditional computer screens with a fixed aspect ratio and a mouse. That is Stracraft.
Also, you mentioned Homeworld, and Homeworld 3 will be out in a few months.
That reminds me, somewhat tangentially, of working with a personal trainer in a gym and made some comment about a particular type of movement being done in a more "efficient" way and the dude was just like "that's not the point", and playing starcraft more efficiently is likewise not the point.
Each side has unique experimental units, not sure what you mean by that. But, as you say, there are 2 factions to play instead of the 4 you'd find in SupCom. A 3rd faction is being worked on though and can be used in multiplayer, but it's beta quality.
I want to like BAR because it is so obviously made with passion and attention to detail but I can't get over how wonky the units look. I don't mean the quality, but the design. They don't look at all cool and I can't get the power fantasy of leading an army of killer robots. I feel like leading some random hodgepodge of guns mounted on trash cans.
If you are a sweaty tryhard I agree. But I personally want cool powerfantasies and big explosions while gaming, otherwise I could just as well play chess or go.
To be clear, I'm not arguing against clear silhouettes, but the general unit design. The robots often just look wacky. Like the sumo thing is this lumbering trashcan that could as well be accompanied by a tuba soundtrack.
I've never played much Zero-K, but from I understand the eco in BAR is truely exponential, after you get to the top of the tech tree and have a metal maker economy. It's an interesting design, since late game human becomes the bottleneck in expanding the eco, since exponential growth also means you have to increase your attention in managing it.
Zero-K from what I know has overdrive fusions, which isn't really exponential in the same sense.
And spectating 8v8+ with tens of thousands of units is something else.
It's unfortunate that large scale RTS isn't a more popular genre.
Instead it's all Fortnite/CoD/WoW