Regarding this discussion about damage, my take is that what lvl 5 units can offer you is more important. Purely damage-wise, I am sure Thorn Hunters have higher potential then Black Dragons. With emphasis on "potential". For example with crown and with some items and spells. But the fights rarely are about pure damage. Battles are more about abilities and talents then they are about damage. For example, and this is just to prove a point now, a shooter with low damage and high speed (such as droid) can easily kill a much larger force of slow moving high-damagin unit like Polar Bear for example. Or even snakes (not royal) can be better then simple bears because they have the lounge ability, while being lower in everything else besides initiative.
When all is said and done, damage is just one of the stats and it's not sure that it is the most important.