ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
More or less, yes. I've tried to argue back against it, but it's highly fetishized as a target. I found it underwhelming in the extreme (borderline useless or potentially detrimental in terms of time/forces used to take it), and I suspect Bullwinkle has also.
It's a highly-useful base, especially for LRCAP and sweeps. It can hold huge supply reserves.
Downsides are that the hex crossing to the east is very slow. Visions of using it for rapid R&R swaps should be rejected. And, as I found, getting onto the road to the east with a vision of a rapid move south toward Rangoon can be stymied by Japan placing a huge, well-supplied (cough), armor-heavy stack in the jungle. And sitting there. So after coming east out of Ramree the Allies must then do a LOT of hexside-control maneuvering/fiddling to bypass that stack. Which I didn't do fast enough, before I had clocked my beautiful stack. And with British, Indian, and Aussie pools, that blows up the campaign.
OTOH, not using Ramree and instead going amphibious farther south has its own dangers if the heavy carriers are busy elsewhere. Pt. Blair and Akyab are range-limited for landing cover, and landing right on top of Rangoon is problematic due to the river, as well as big LBA from Chiang Mai and other Japan mega-bases. Other bases such as Pegu and Moulmein have their own mix of problems.
The game makes it far too easy to supply massive stacks in triple-canopy jungle. Both sides, although the Allies could build roads and were motorized. I think it's another example of what the devs thought "normal" and "reasonable" ten years ago has been overcome by JFB learning and optimizing in that time.
All things considered I think Ramree is worth doing, but it's not a slam dunk in every case and against every opponent.
