I had considered that but I am sure I've seen the AI pump out loyalist revolt units with armor/wepaon upgrades even though there are no buildings with such bonuses
The game does that semi-regardless of the buildings. I say semi because i removed *all* the weapon, armour, exp upgrades from my game as i couldn't stop myself obsessively moving all my units to get the best upgrades. Since then the max that revolters get is one armour upgrade when they revolt and no exp. So maybe it is somehow based on the max available upgrade in the EDB?

I find the game more enjoyable without them as the AI doesn't use them like the player does and it is one less distraction if you're the obsessive type. I just made blacksmiths into economic buildings instead with some tax and trade bonus and made the barracks buildings dependent on them.