Good list Simon. On the high ground thing...a big problem is not just the pivot. The AI won't slide laterally with its forces to block the player attempting to gain its flank via a parallel march.

mongoose brings up another point, while I was editing the strategic map to make it more challenging, I found that the AI inherently likes to split its forces for no apparent reason. If I put a nice stack of rebels in a city, the AI would take all but a handful out of the city and march them off to the hinterland to stand alone. The AI would be defeated in detail, even by other AI.