You’re not mistaken, the meta is pretty much 90% Xbows, you’re naive if you expect something else, strategically this game is narrower than ever, meta is close to dead when it comes to diversity.
However, You dont need to murder AOE to balance that. Units were fine for 20 years, I recommend you to watch games from early 2019 and below, you’d see plenty of Knights, Pikes+Siege, and even Unique Units, yes, on Arabia.
We have short memory, but it used to be much better, and it’s mostly a result of the changes they’ve made in the Arabia. Check my post regarding this exact subject: