I would think the existence of Steel Beasts Pro PE kind of proves there is somewhat of a market (probably extremely small given the price point).
That said, I think it is somewhat a question of intent. I think a Steel Beasts level of realism takes quite a bit of work to create (and even it could get better). So, does ED want to have an extremely realistic ground war sim, or is the intent generally to provide a human ground commander (or commanders) to spice up predominantly PVE missions?