Well, the thing is that the game is very realistic in that by the time you DO get high star generals, your general eventually die anyways.

I personally don't have a problem with the current system, since its very hard to manage to get a general with MANY stars that easily - its a huge gamble to attack superior forces with a general just to boost up his star rating, and the normal battles are far and wide - most AI armies are spread out with only a few units in them and its mostly the cities and invading/defending armies which hold large amounts of troops.