Hey Maus, I pretty much agree with you. I think there are different types of realism. Scourge of War, and its "HQ in the Saddle", offers a lesson in how hard it must have been to command from horseback, without a birds-eye view. To my mind, Ultimate General provides a different sort of realism: it does a great job of modeling the ebb and flow of the battle. It also moves fast enough that I can play the whole battle of Gettysburg in an afternoon, and in other games, I often don't get to the end.
P.S.: I think maybe you know me as Raz, from other games.