I like the general idea.
Nobody said we should be able to BECOME the troops or CONTROL them. The way I see Nemisis's suggestions of choosing what they do would akin to the following: in the hangar, the loadout determines the troop type. I.e., we can loadout 10 capture troops or 10 fighting troops.
It is kind of silly for our troops right now to be utterly defenseless/offenseless, at least against ground targets. Yes there would need to be major revamps, else a flight of say 5 C47s will take an undefended base.
But against defended bases, the troops would still be pretty defenseless against aircraft. It's not like we're giving them SAMs.