[Imp]

Now boys play nice, the truth is all tanks have there design faults its the nature of the beast. And all modern MBT are unproven including the likes of the M1 to say otherwise is delusional.
Taking a man of the street & pitting him against a heavy weight boxer does not prove anything only when he faces the opponent he trained for or the tank was designed to take on has that happened.
Tank design is a slow progresion with occasional leaps the first big one possibly being the Germans realising armoured warfare was on the cards & designing the Tiger.
The next probably the T-34 which became the basis for tank design spawning for instance the Panther. Targeting computers came along Chobham Armour improved detection & the USA finaly managed to produce a half decent tank as the M1 was born, etc etc etc.
Of course it to was found to be almost immediatly redundant as the West managed to miss the birth of the T-72 so its main gun was a travesty & the drawing board came out again.

It is only when you get a sudden leap that you get a tank that rules the battlefield, but even the Tiger only got a few years grace. If you are capable of killing the other guy it comes down to crew & training & the standard of your equipment makes that easier or harder. With recent advances but the same holds throughout history staying on top of the game is important. If the tanks a couple of years old & someone has made an advance it may as well be 20 years old from an effectivness point of view.