How is the ability to buy covert levels any more difficult than ToC or MS's?
I mean yeah realistically you can improve them all.. yes you can do toc and MS in smaller increments.. but its no less cheap than the cost of these massive covert levels out there... I mean the top MSs and ToCs in the game resource value wise cost quite a bit more than even a 39 covert level.
If it is a bank issue then there are ways around that.. yeah it would take a long time to farm but it is doable.
as you say SoL.. same can be said for plague.. anyone can buy UP and get beyond that also...
in fact UP is probably the cheapest of any of these MS, ToC, covert...
which is funny because that is the one that has been limited the most so far

The real reason covert plays the more important role is because of the alliance functions allowing repair.. the only way to do for sure damage quickly is to sab.. that is unfortunate as I know plenty of people used to love massing back when the real concern you had was if the person was going to come online, not how well their alliance mates organize coverage

I'm not complaining about our war either, just saying what I believe the reason for the importance of covert nowadays being.
I do kind of think covert power is overwhelming, but sadly so and only against lower cov levels.
a 39 fighting a 39 is tough just like a 3T MS fighting a 3T MS is tough
a 39 cov fighting a 37 cov is dominating just like a 5T MS is against a 3T
there really isn't a reasonable way to cap increase in stats as long as people want to focus on one thing or another.
Some people choose gigantic ToC, Gigantic MS, Gigantic Fleets, Gigantic defenses, gigantic planets, huge covert levels... huge AC levels.. Huge UP.
Someone has all of these and in any of these areas that people have the best in... they dominate.
So what can be done?
Its too late to stop the people that have big stats.. if you make it too easy to catch up then its a bit unfair also..
I'm not arguing for or against any one thing.. just is my opinion that any stat can be focused on and built effectively with a lot of work. Is that going to be as easy as those who have spent $$ to get there? absolutely not. Thems the breaks unfortunately tho.
The new accounts will never catch up to the big accounts, and the mediocre accounts will never be able to hang with the $$ accounts.
I do dislike just how significant covert has become compared to previous fighting.. but that and repair functions were done because of wars resulting in 0 defense stats because people couldn't protect their stats by themselves.
if you put a "max" level on things though on anything.. even the accounts that have the top in any stat I would say its still at a level in which it takes a lot of effort to catch.
most people will still not try to reach the "cap" because they are that much more resource expensive as compared to ascending.
It is a sad day for the game when politics plays more in to what is updated than what is really good for the game.. but its gotten so far off path that I'm not even sure what updates would be good for the game anymore.