Tracks, I agree with all that. Rubicon's crew figures definitely have a mini-Tamiya design vibe to them. They look to be aimed more at modellers than wargamers.
I'm a wargamer and figure modeller / painter, not a scale model AFV nut. So for me, the figures are just as important as the vehicles and guns. I adore Rubicon. I love how they do business, the quality of their kits and everything about them. The only thing I have continuing reservations about is their human figures. The CAD precision that serves RM so well in the design and production of hard-edged vehicle and artillery models, just doesn't seem to work so well for the soft, organic forms of the human body and clothing. To be fair, I'm only talking about the plastic crew figures, as I haven't bought any of the pewter infantry miniatures.
But as far as the crew figures go, posing invariably looks stiff and odd; the detail on faces, fingers etc is too soft; clothing - especially sleeves - far too baggy with an overdose of folds and creases; and helmet and hat shapes are too often slightly wrong. I would say, in the spirit of constructive criticism, that if there's one area where RM could and should raise their game, it's in the modelling of 1/56 scale soldiers. I'm sure they will.
Although the size and stature is pretty close to the Perry 1/56 WW2 figures, the RM plastic crew figures don't tie in stylistically - which is why I generally kitbash my plastic crew figures with Perry heads, arms and weapons / equipment onto the Rubicon bodies.
To be fair, I think Rubicon's figures are a closer match to Michael Perry's WW2 figures than to the outsized, cartoony Warlord figures, which are much closer to 'traditional' wargames munchkins with oversized heads, hands and weapons. The Perry figures, as you say, are a much more successful compromise between wargames style and realistic human dimensions and poses.
I guess the main difficulty with aligning to the Perry range, is that with the exception of the recently released US plastic set, which is fairly generic for WW2, the rest of the Perry range is only concerned with the Western Desert and Italy / Crete / the Med, which is something of a minority interest in the WW2 wargaming sphere. Whereas Rubicon's range covers the much larger and, erm.. popular theatres of the Eastern Front and Western Europe from early war, through D-Day to the Ardennes and beyond. Until such time as the Perrys produce infantry sets for the Soviets and European theatre British/Commonwealth and German, I guess most people will still reach for Warlord plastics, or metals from Artizan, Crusader and the like. Which are way too big and chunky to sit comfortably with 'true 1/56 scale' AFVs, softskins and guns from Rubicon.
