I was going to say the exact same thing. If it was based on cost benefit calculations, we would be screwed!!! At least from a [ ammout of troops required to noble / villages nobled ] ratio standpoint. If, instead, the ratio was [ how many villages can these guys actually noble from me? ] then the rationale is completely different.
Now, the discusions on not relying on stats, you might have misunderstood. What we meant was that they should not be proud of their stats because they kept on kicking players we were in the process of nobling. Then, they said, "yeah, but it was because they went inactive", so we said, "yeah, they went inactive because we kicked their hobbit arses back to the shire". So, again, you are misunderstanding the point. We didn't really start the discussion on stats. As for us being able to perform better, yeah, sure, that's possible. We had a rough couple of weeks but we are getting our stuff back togetther and you will see us (or should I say me?) soon enough again. Remember me? I'm the guy who sent your way two 110 hour noble trains without that many fakes and still got those villages. It's a shame on me I didn't send defense (or was it arrogance?) or I guarantee you wouldn't be so cocky now. No dodging, no stacking, no sniping, no nothing. Because of that I believe equal size or points would not make any difference.
As for the groupons I believe they are only available if you pay with paypal, since you get (I think) +5% more of what you pay for.