Yes, YES!. I often go with godlike cav and all I meet is li/archers, occasionaly 1-2 heavies... But when I go some naked/uncommon LI, I get enemy with cav and cannon and I get nearly killed. Oh how I wish to be able to fight enemy cav and 3-6 artilleries with my horsies...
And the AP bar looks totally in our favor if we bring items. Not fun at all. Maybe the enemy spawn is decided by total base unit AP value + number of squads, not taking items into account, hence inverted difficulty curve.
And it happens both in coops and solos, at least for me.
Not that I mind doing few battles without real need to heal, but I miss the difficulty at least in solos. Hence I like pvp so much, it gives more challenge.