If we're talking exclusively about single-seat mechs, I tend to err to the side of them being more to facilitate more mobility and lethality to the average infantry-squad. Kinda like a rather potent power-armor while still being a bit of a squishy glass-cannon [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK-msJg6BEw]in the grander scheme of things[/url].

As for controls, really it'd depend on what iterative generation of mechs it is (or if it was the budget/militia/pirate model).

And of course, all the tech making mechs viable ends up also going to the conventional heavy-hitters, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEh_hmWBD0A]hetzers gonna hetz[/url] when you don't need no stinking micro-fusion core invented by General Motors in the 90s.

By the time you've got power-armors with Spartan-IIs/Ultramarines inside them, you've still got enemies that can throw them and/or doomguy around like a ragdoll. That said, having just one show up is often enough to turn the tide of a firefight decisively in your favor, let alone a whole dropship/drop-pod full of them just steamrolling through the enemy formation like an avalanche.

The other approach is [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpKs33CihsY]mech-hunters[/url], ofc. Because everybody likes a story about slaying [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_trsWg2xug]the latest technological dragon of the battlefield[/url].