I mean, yes, I'm a minority, but if the XCOM and Phoenix Point devs are willing to put in the effort to balance all four difficulty settings, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the Gears devs to do the same. It's not like they're some small indie company!
And to be honest, the 'hard' difficulty doesn't seem all that well tuned either. I played through on difficulty 4 out of 4 and got repeatedly one-shot and had to restart multiple times per mission. Now I'm playing through on difficulty 3 out of 4 and it's a cakewalk (I can't remember the last time that one of my soldiers dipped below half health). I'm still (just about) enjoying it, but if I give up on the game, this and the equipment UI are going to be the reasons why.