As someone who's read all of those (and then some), I think this could be a very fun discussion. I thought I was the only boring guy that loved "Red Thrust". I really liked it. "Chieftains" was good, but is a bit of a downer. I'd still recommend it for a different perspective, though. I quite liked "The War That Never Was" by Michael A. Palmer, but I wouldn't recommend it to you. It's basically 350 pages of that "tedious" naval stuff you hated in "Red Storm Rising". It also presumes a pretty significant level of knowledge on the part of the reader, too. The author expects his readers to know what an RGM-84 is and what you shoot them at.
Cheers,
Logan