Different meta altogether, and I would say I play only rarely and usually with and against crews I'm unfamiliar with, so I'm typically in a "see what these crews do" mentality rather than a fine-tuning tournament lists mentality. And I haven't really had to play against Pandora myself.
Activation control is big and having more models is obviously a benefit, but it's really Pandora that punishes you for too few models; like you said you can't react to incite/paralyze as well and each paralyze is affecting a larger % of your crew.
In some matches like Reckoning I'll often take few elite models, only 4-5 models, and try to shut my opponent out of the strategy. The opposite had to happen in a reconnoiter match where you need bodies to claim quarters. For me it's more dependent on strategy/schemes than opponent, especially since you don't usually know what your opponent is taking. In your situation, you know Micah is taking Pandora and probably which minions he's taking so that really changes the way you both build your crews.