Fighting Commanders and Equipment.

[Oversway]

But I can't help but feel that maybe the lower commanders should be able to interact with items against other normal troops with a little bit of survivability. Its not just their base stats I don't think.

Yeah, I agree. Part of the problem is that groups (much less a commander) don't stay together if they have differing moves. This can be helpful sometimes (elephants, etc.) but other times its a problem. It can be difficult to use units and commanders with the Standard ability (the one that helps morale) because of this.

The other half would be you usually have a lot more normal units than commanders, and they get overwhelmed, even with some ok equipment.