Just yesterday I downloaded the 9th Age EoS list & the rule book. I can see why Anubis is worried. There are many other, minor problems there, and a couple unclarities. It's clearly a work in progress. They've promised a new version in March.
My advice would be to put this to the 9th Age forum. The designers seem to check that forum often, and pay attention to good criticism. There are Empire players there, so they should be familiar with the eternal problems of three Empire Core Infantry types, out of which only two have been "gamers' choice" in the different editions over the past 15 years. I believe they want to remedy that.
They do listen, but their biggest problem comes from their desire to get everything 100% balanced. Which is impossible and has obviously slowed things down in terms of getting stuff released.
And they closed the rules team members off quite early. ....which led to the obvious dwarf bias, and the nerfing of certain rules that were actually fine. I suspect they have 1 or 2 guys on the rules team that really shouldn't be in game design. But since they were founding members of the existing team back in Swedish or etc comp then they get to stay and shove their biases in there.
Note, this is just what it feels like as an observer to how they are doing things.
Dwarfs is the great example - the loudest guy who only plays dwarfs, only plays warhammer and no other game system, complains dwarfs are too slow. So they give them triple march. ...and that wasn't even the first incarnation of the rule. Back in swedish at the end they were comped so light they won almost every tourney.
I looked at the current rules and it looks that that guy is still there whining for his dwarfs.
I have a dwarf army too. And I'll tell ya, the way they buffed dwarfs, there isn't much point in playing empire, or most of the other armies for that matter.
Heck, I skimmed over wood elves and they got nerfed in the shooty department alot. I'm guessing the dwarfs are better shooters than the elves. ...but I only glanced, I'll have to read more and confirm.
....anyway that is my rant about the 9th age.
I applied for the fluff team cause that was the only thing left open a few months ago. But then I just hung up all my hobby stuff and went outside. I don't judge too harshly because its all volunteer. Once I give it a read through I'll probably post a comprehensive theory review on the 9th age form.
If I still find major bias towards dwarfs I'll probe and find out more. But it could just look biased on paper.
Note: even with all the small flaws, its still a very well balanced game. Some units might seem redundant but its mainly because the goal was to allow players to be able to use their existing models, which was achieved.
Edit:
I went and checked the parry rule: yeesh that is bad. Useless against elves.
But the swordsmen for empire are 1point cheaper than spear or halberd. Sometimes all you need is more bodies.
I used Spearmen in 8th edition alot. People said I they never killed anything, halberds are better. So I took halberds and they died just as fast as the spears, their offense was slightly better but sometimes a proper unit matchup just wasn't there.
And that 50pts I saved went a long way for being able to take something else.