Azure, rusty, and other super dragons: do they live up to the hype?

Ranged damage will be 1.5-2.5 times stronger, but only on a direct shot, and the opponent will try to kill/block them... Rusty, on the other hand, will block the enemy's ranged units, survive a couple of turns, and even spit on whoever it can. On offense, they are indeed more useful + often get the first turn, while on defense — they only serve to block shooters (two hexes after all) and remove retaliation... the opponent, even a dumb AI, will ignore them and hit the units that deal damage. To GoedenDag: so the main drawback of the Superdragons is precisely their cost; I am specifically interested in cases where you have to forego some other troops for them + spend an astronomical amount of resources that might suddenly be needed later. On random, if McDonald's isn't on the native respawn, I don't even go there, unless the army is battered and the castle is far away. Getting at least five FDs there is not easy, the enemy can easily intercept them, and that's just extra trouble for me. It's better to not let the genie out of the bottle at all... If McDonald's is nearby, you can send a mosquito per week to clear it out, but that's IMO only on XL, where you have what it takes to offset 10000+ losses + gems...