To be fair, at least Admiral with Grudgebearer (for double dmg vs. one hero) or say Zon artifact (+2 atk), was pretty good already. And he didn't improve that much in melee, more in shooting as he lost his rerolls in melee, so net gain is not that drastic. Still welcome of course especially with his hammer vs Coalesced. And foot Endrinmaster was also good and say in Zon with artifact was somewhat reliable source of MW.
But I like your point on combat heroes, especially not priciest ones (those were often fine before). Let's just look at Savage Big Boss or Sludgeraker (which surprised me with it's dmg/pts efficiency, typical more for units not heroes), Runefathers and Grimwraths which works very nice with their traits/artifacts. Also abilities that started appearing allowing for foot heroes to attack first without gimping yourself as units can follow up on their attacks can mean a lot (aforementioned Savage Big Boss and Runefather, also non-monster Soulblight Heroes). There is definetly something good happening with this.