"The brigade sized element is in keeping with the active duty Army realigning into brigade-sized units of action / units of employment."
Nice bit of obfuscation, pal. You told me that the National Guard musters enough troops to put a full brigade on the border year-round, doing nothing resembling their military mission.
I'm calling "Bravo Sierra."
"That's the price of doing business with tracks if you drive them too hard. Another idea would be to go to motorized (ie, mounted in Humvee) units."
OK, so you break axles instead of throw tracks.
The terrain here is walkable. It is not driveable.
That's exactly what I said, in response to your question of whether or not the Guard had any full-size divisions. They do, but they're really designed to work in brigade sized elements.
Oh, and you're right - patrolling, gathering, interpreting, and acting on intelligence, conducting defense in depth, movement to contact, exercising your medical and maintenance units, etc... those aren't military missions at all.