Without a single mention of Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander, I assume Joshua hasn't played those. Ashes isn't akin to Starcraft anymore than a human is akin to a marmot. They both share a common ancestor somewhere in the very distant past, but they are completely different lines.
That's why I hated Ashes so much, minor graphical improvements aside there is nothing that Ashes does that Supreme Commander doesn't do better.
With Supreme Commander you truly got a sense of scale, Ashes has all the units be completely unfamiliar sci-fi thingies. Supreme Commander includes Tanks, we know how big a tank is, so when you see that giant mechanical spider crushing a tank with one foot you get the sense "Wow! That is a huge spider!". Compare the dreadnoughts in Ashes which you know are big, but never get a precise sense of scale to.
Supreme Commander has hands down the best transport logistics system I've ever seen in an RTS, Ashes doesn't even have transport aircraft. What SC did was allow you to issue a ferry command, click ferry and I'll place an icon on the ground where your transport was and another icon at the destination. If you selected a bunch of units and clicked the ferry icon the transport would make repeated trips until everyone was at the destination. If you commanded another transport aircraft to assist the ferry, you'd have two transports ferrying. If you assigned a factory rally point as the ferry icon, all newly built units would move to ferry point and get transported.
It kept the battle lines fluid, rather than the slow moving slog of Ashes.