This is not a post in favour or against - just some facts about wingers.

Wingers in SESL and OASL are quite powerful in early cross - it is my tactic in both games. The 1.75 (1.95 with 4 attackers) multiplier was there when I first started playing these games. The FW longball multiplier was 1.5 back then as well. Longball was deemed too powerful because the FWs added 6 to OFF on their ownsnd got nearly all the shots - it was too easy to pump CP into FWs. With a 4-4-2 normal you'd only get 5 (.75 from MFs and 1.0 from FWs). So FW OFF for longball was dropped to 1.25.

With early cross you also get about 6 from 2 WGs and 2 FWs but there is a difference from the 6 that longball gave you. One is that WGs don't get as many shots - they get roughly the same number of shots as an equivalent SL MF. This does mean more going to the other players. Another is marking as Roy pointed out. Marking an early cross winger takes the most OFF off - that's why I did it in SESL. Even playing N and marking an early cross winger is effective as the DF loses 0.6 GP, 1 DEF and 0.2 OFF but takes away 1.95 OFF.  It's less effective against other tactics however.

A few years ago some people decided the base 1.75 was too high and so it was reduced to 1.60  It's still this is SFLSL where I have two decent wingers but the FWs are stronger so I play N.

1.6 (1.8 with bonuses) means 5.6 from WGs+FWs compared to 5.0 from 4 FWs playing L. It's still more powerful and as easy to set up/maintain.