There's lots of reasons to do boards that resemble the Russian front. We don't have many now at all - and definitely not as many as warranted given the amount of fighting on the Eastern front. We're 'Russian poor'.
The issue is about Russian terrain / ASL - the relatively more open spaces, the spread out villages, unique terrain (ie. Wooden fences, Balkas) etc., should be used in board design in order for designers to recreate a more realistic battles. But such board design needs to also be 'ASL fun' - namely, give players the ability to hide, skulk, rally, etc, without having to use 3+ boards all the time. Currently, or geoboard mix doesn't allow them to have more and better (realistic & fun) Russian boards to work with. That kind of design is my goal.
The example of the No. African terrain (at least those tan boards that we currently have - not others that we might have), shows that guys don't like playing this theater - probably because of the fact that it is just too foreign for most players (whole new rules, weird and too open terrain). Most players feel better with the more ASL friendly terrain type boards - lots of places to hide, rally, easy set up, and so on. So Russian terrain and scenario development must walk the line between getting more realistic looking Russian terrain while still giving enough ASL terrain to be comfortable with. That can be done and that's exactly what I've been doing for the past couple years (among other stuff).
Tom R. and I have collaborated on several such geoboard renderings (much smaller than the one above) that help move this in the right direction. Currently, I'm painting 4-5 Russian theme boards, inspired by reading a lot lately about the northern Kursk battles (many of which in themselves were very large engagements and every one warranting more scenarios). This crop includes Villages, a new Hill, Open field, Grainfield boards which I someday hope to convince MMP to publish - provided I find some guy(s) who have as much interest as I do about doing more Russian stuff!
More. Russian terrain was unique. Not like France. Think of generally two types of architecture that aren't well represented in ASL: 1) Old Russia - isbas (like pic above): crude, square, wooden - no elaborate thing here. Not Huts, but not like the sturdy European structures. 2) New Soviet - the 'Brutalist' architecture style of the Stalinist 30's. Heavy, concrete, plain, ugly. Yea, there were other kinds of older European looking architecture too in more urban places in Russia, but we already have that in spades.
The upcoming (hopefully) Slaughter at Ponyri tries to illustrate these two types. Ponyri was an excellent example of this blend in one place. Gotta have more of this!