The great thing about this hobby is that there are about as many different ways to scale a game as there are players. You didn't mention the scale you play in, but I imagine it is a company or battalion to a piece or unit. I like your idea about using a painted area with an occasional model on it and might use it some day, thanks.
I was teethed back in the 70s on Tractics, Panzer Warfare, and Giac My. Mainly skirmish games that we modified the unit scale to 1:1 and the ranges of the weapons to 1/72nd scale, and later 1/285th after we discovered GHQ. Later we got our hands on "The Book of MARS" by FASA and things really got messy. We did play some company level games, but those were mostly from SSI or AH. Maybe its the player/collector in me (or is it collector/player?) that enjoys having scenery that both serves eye candy and as obstacles to the units on the board. I agree with you about how such scenery can be detrimental to a large scale game, but for skirmishers like me it works. (I once considered adding detailed interiors to the buildings, but the "Baseball Bat of Logic and Reason" brought me to my senses
)
Now if you want to talk about scaling a game . . . I remember reading in the late 70s or early 80s (in Wargamer's Digest?) about a group in Japan that skirmished in 1/35th scale, both infantry and tanks. They use 4' x 8' sheets of plywood mounted on rolling tables for the terrain. The picture looked like about 5 x 4 tables (20 x 32 feet) which they separated to move the figures/tanks and check line of sight. We didn't have laser pointers back then so it was eyeball in the old railroad turf
. Looked like fun, but I imagine the game took days to play due to moving the tables all the time.
Interesting side note: Panzer Warfare, published in 1975, has a listing for the Maus tank for both the 150mm and 128mm main guns, with a 76/L31 as a coaxial gun. (Along with pictures of GHQ micro armor from Wargamer's Digest
)
). The nice thing about these buildings is that you can shorten or extend them as you want. 
