I once had a player complain that some of my OPFOR NPCs were
too smart. He seemed surprised that bad guys would have a solid grasp of basic infantry tactics like fire-and-maneuver and flanking. He also complained when OPFOR pressed an attack despite sustaining casualties. He expected that marauders, in particular, would always retreat at the first site of their own blood.
For GM's, a potential solution to the problem that you described, Chalk, is to use the NPC playing card system of v1 to help determine the tactical competence of NPC OPFOR. One could modify the suit/number/face card system already in place, or simplify it further. Something like,
Spades- tactically sharp; will use every trick in the book
Clubs- brute force, favors frontal assaults
Hearts- tentative, will retreat at the first significant casualty
Diamonds- opportunistic, will only attack if it has a measurable advantage, favors ambushes
That's just off the top of my head, so I'm sure one could come up with a better system, but something along these lines would create a variety of competence levels of OPFOR for parties to go up against.
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