Im starting to compensate for this in my mission by giving nukes to the heavy raiders, they carry the football to the endzone so to speak
it goes both ways, if you have the sobec launch it's "ICBMs" the raiders will shoot them down as well if you dont clear them out, they just cant stop the direct fire weapons.
as far as the Cylons being "stupid," well they aren't stupid, they're immature. they're not the near omnipotent kind of AI beings, and they are deeply personally flawed and emotionally immature, much like the replicants from blade runner. If you haven't watched the BSG movie "The Plan," do. It's not on netflix and I had missed the fact it came out at all (2010?) If follows the the series from the very beginning (dont want to say when it ends) but from the Cylon perspective. It provides some serious insight into the Cylon psychology and answers a lot that was speculative before. The CNP was the trump card, Cavil was not interested in a contracted war with humanity, he wanted to exterminate the entire species in one grand opus and be done. They're not stupid, they just fell prey to hubris. The Galactica and the fleet survived, that was never intended. They didn't have to be tough when they had an off switch for the entire enemy fleet. They were confident in the CNP, and Cavil had a personal interest in keeping a time table due to "front row seat to a holocaust" he wished to put the final 5 through. Their motives are not clear cut, hence flawed.
in the show, neither battlestar was at full strength (not sure how many, but there was a portion of Pegasus crew on shore leave, hence the drafting civilians, and still managed to do quite well against multiple basestars across numerous engagements, years of heavy service, and the galactica was seriously outdated (thank the gods) A fully functional "modern" battlestar with a full crew and some serious motivation to fight should kick all sorts of arse.
that, and with resurrection, a baseship is almost akin to a UAV, and survivability really isn't a major concern