Some folks argue that there should not have been any Tigers at all, and Germany would have been better off mass-producing the Panther tank.
Yep. Many consider the Panther to be the finest medium tank produced by any country in the entire war. High velocity 75 mm cannon, sloped glacis armor and wide tracks made it an excellent, all-purpose tank. The Germans frittered away a lot of time and material on dead-end wunderweapons like the King Tiger and Elephant, when they would have been far better served maximizing Panther production - and jet fighter development.
The Tiger was a great defensive tank, but that didn't make it a good weapon choice. It was too large and too heavy for the infrastructure of the day, making it hard to move across a simple creek.
The Panther was likely far more effective for the money.
Had the United States produced the M26 Pershing tank two years earlier, the tank battles would have been very different. The Pershing was the equal of the Panther and gunned like a Tiger.