I don't understand how you can say Tobin's 10 str growth is bad and Cliff's 20 str growth is good (comapratively or whatever). For most part, growths suck in Gaiden. Cliff is not an exception to this apart from his speed and defense.

He'll be faster than Tobin depending on each unit's class, but Mage Cliff, if Tobin is a Merc, is not one of them. In fact, it's practically impossible for Mage Cliff to catch up to Merc Tobin on his own merits because the Mage class base is so bad and the Merc class base is so good.

Which gets back to the point that (class) bases matter more than growths in Gaiden. Yeah, Tobin needs promotion bonuses to stay viable, but so do the other Villager boys. If growths did in fact determine their viability as you say, then all of them are in a shaky situation because none of their growths are good enough to improve them quickly. If Tobin's doing 1 damage in Merc, Gray's doing 2 or 3.

I don't think anyone is arguing Tobin's the best of the three, but it's so exaggerated to say a unit with such high availability and whom you can deploy at no cost is THIS bad.