I'm redirecting all the "Two Columns Versus One Line Angst" topics here for a consolidated discussion.
I honestly think that people are making too much of the *possibility* of this tactic, imagining a little 2-1 charge and then assuming that it's a sure-thing, game-winning, loophole.
You've got to have some faith that the playtest groups tried a LOT of combinations and that after each session Chuck Hamack and I went through a LOT of number crunching about the odds of this or that outcome.
More importantly, you need to play the game against a variety of opponents, with a variety of armies, and in a variety of settings. Something that might be a good tactic against the Austrians is not necessarily a good tactic against the Russians. Something that's a good tactic on a wide-open board with lots of open fields of fire, is not necessarily a good tactic on a terrain-heavy or congested board.
I probably saw the 2 Columns vs. 1 Line attack happen in three-quarters of the playtest games that I observed personally, and I know it happened in the blind playtest groups, too. And yet the overall Win/Loss record still dramatically favored the Defender until we introduced that "attacker's bonus" units in the Core lists.
First, Lasalle armies are basically equal in size. So if you're bunching up tightly to get a 2-1 attack, that means there's probably a defending unit with nothing to do. If your opponent has any sense or skill, he's not going to sit there and watch.
Second, if you really are bunching shoulder-to-shoulder columns in the attack, then you obviously can't Wheel prior to a charge. (Because doing so would interpenetrate a friendly, and you can't interpenetrate if you're charging.) So you can only go perfectly straight forward. That means that a defending Line, seeing your approach, can easily oblique a little, or wheel a little, or do any number of small adjustments to prevent you from landing that perfect 2-1 frontal attack that would enable you to use all your dice. One of your battalions will probably get only half dice.
Third, if the defender has Experienced troops and a Vigorous subcommander, he has a very good chance of simply Falling back and avoiding your attack, in order to then set up some counterstroke of his own, presumably on your flanks because you're so bunched up in a Phalanx.
I could go on forever with examples, such as the joy my friend Rob might experience with his Russian Infantry division, if he took a Reserve Artillery support choice and then used the "Home Field Advantage" rule and got to watch the Phalanx advance across the length of the board while his five artillery batteries did their execution.
Suffice to say: YES, in any given game an opportunity might arise to score a coup when some tactical situation allows for a true 2-1 attack. But NO, it's not a sure-fire, always-reliable, game-winning loophole in the rules.