RAMSnake aka Satanyst
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Most often, people play on Veteran difficulty, and there are definitely resources available there. And it's not that bad on Hero difficulty either. An experienced player knows exactly how many resources are needed over a certain period of time, with a specific starting castle level and for a particular faction, to optimize building. They also know the ranges for resource piles and camps, with only a correction for the randomness.
The average two-on-two duel lasts 3 months (monsters are strong, skill is the hero's, template is any champion-level unit)...
Sometimes it's really worth taking chests for experience if you urgently need to gain a specific skill. But in most cases, you take gold, and definitely not after level 20. Besides, it's a wasted turn for the main hero.
Only on extremely resource-poor maps. In all parts of Heroes, troops are prioritized, bought with money from buildings and chests, and then used in battles to help the hero gain experience. Not experience (almost always less) from chests, but instead, we build up our economy and end up with no army.
A more experienced hero means a stronger army....
One week that you waste on economy/leveling up is just one increase in stats... It doesn't decide anything because you and your opponent will both be losing troops to neutrals. The whole point is not to lose troops!
The opinion that Logistics is not needed in the final stage is extremely wrong. A Logistics hero not only chooses the time to attack, i.e., can gather bonuses for Luck, Morale, 10% HP for the final battle, which fully compensates for the loss of a combat slot, because the enemy won't have these bonuses, but also statistically has more artifacts. Moreover, there are Native Lands for warriors and Order of the Unicorn for mages - awesome things.
And all those bonuses you wrote about are nonsense....
The one who played the !ENTIRE! duel better, lost less, and gathered more wins.... Most often, it's clear who won even before the final battle, even in a 2v2....
And he won't have more artifacts - both have the same number of slots, and they will all be filled. You'll say that the artifacts will be better? The main thing is not the coolness of the artifacts, but their smart placement according to the situation....
If you're going to fight defensively in the final stage, maybe it's better to level up to Readiness, especially if you have Vampirism?