I realize that T1 is probably not supposed to be viable in itself.
BUT... I also see that if you don't take your second node with your engineer during the first 60 seconds of the game, then you end up at a huge disadvantage.
The situation is made even worse if your opponent goes Rad for their first expo, followed by Airport, followed by obnoxious bombing against your central command.
Would it be so bad to have just a little mobile response to air at T1?
Maybe something that fires slow and is super-squishy?
Then you aren't even more behind the 8-ball, spending resources on extra AA defense, just because you didn't scramble for second node in first 5 seconds of game.
Just a thought.