it doesn't hurt the game in anyway.

It actively impedes the ability for a new player to begin a game on an even setting with an experienced player. If this is supposed to be an accepted part of gameplay, why do experienced players not get an additional 50 or 100 points to play with so as to further this unevenness in beginning game conditions.

As a new player, you should spend time looking at the meta and figuring out what pieces are popular [...] and trying to memorize, or at least familiarize yourself, with their dials.

Wait, others have been saying it's a minor difference and knowing their dials is a negligible benefit at best.

Either the knowledge of an opponent's dial is trivial, in which case the game would not be harmed by any metric if it was removed, or it is a significant advantage, in which case it is even more important that it be removed.

your complaint is mostly unfounded and out of place in a competitive setting.

No, it's a very relevant and pertinent complaint, one which everyone seems bound and determined to ignore or brush off as trivial concerns. Look at Chess and Magic the Gathering as two examples of how this is very important in a competitive setting:

In Chess, both players start with identical board positions and units; Equal, in every way. The game then progresses based on skill alone, where the best player will win. If you hinder this by concealing information unequally, so one player knows the position and type of more and/or different units than the other, this skews the game's result in favor of the player who was granted more of this information.

In Magic, tournaments allow you at any time to ask judges about any and all details of a given card. There is hidden information, in that you can't know the order of your deck or your opponent's, or the content of their hand, but when cards are played, the information is available for all players: You don't hide the Toughness or CMC or Abilities of a given card at any point.

but it's not nearly as much work as you're making it out to be

There are thousands of figures, and hundreds of metas. If I learn my local meta, I can still go up against a regional opponent who may well have far more experience fighting teams like or identical to mine, while I have little to no experience versus his, or vice versa. That game will be played on an uneven footing that is based on arbitrary memorization rather than the actual skill of a player.

Some imperfect information is good, and it's a part of the system that makes it stand out against other miniatures systems.

Imperfect information is good; That's what die rolls are for.

If both players were equally set with imperfect information, I'd be a happy camper. But they're not, and that inequality is both arbitrary and not actually representative of player ability.

I would say that this mechanic is making Heroclix stand out, but not in a good way. Look at it like this: If everyone on here thinks this rule is a good idea, as evidenced by mass-downvoting of any contrary opinions, then the masses know best? Now draw back, and look at this rule being unique to Heroclix, when compared with games like Warhammer, Magic the Gathering, and Chess that have had dozens or even thousands of years to develop such a rule, but never have, and have absurdly huge followings nonetheless. I would say that would point to the masses saying that such a division of information is unnecessary for a game to be fun and competitive, which is one reason why I'm opposed to it.

You should always be familiar with YOUR team, and once you see the competitive scene there are several dials you will see repeatedly.

For sure, but the same can be said of Magic the Gathering decks and lists; You should be familiar with yours, and know how best to use your deck and how best to counter other decks.

That said, when playing Magic, if your opponent plays a card, you get to see the entirety of the card, and not just a few snippets of information, and if you know what cards an opponent has (Such as due to a spell revealing such), you are always allowed to ask a judge what said card is, in its entirety, instead of being told "good luck" and a shrug because you've only been playing for three weeks instead of three years. This degree of arbitrary hidden knowledge is unique to Heroclix and Heroclix alone.