My thoughts haven’t changed much in the past few years…
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33104.0
If anything, playing more 1941 games in the intervening period has hardened my position, such that I wouldn’t really recommend 1941 for new players, unless you add in some kind of bonus cash mechanism. I think an national bonus is the easiest to implement, though it has the drawback of making it more attractive for players to just turtle up on the capitals.
My favorite method for introducing cash is the battle bonus. There a couple of ways to go about it, but the easiest is to say that whenever a territory is captured, the conquerer gets +1 IPC added to their war chest, in addition to whatever the normal value of the territory might be. This ensures that all territories are worth contesting, even zero IPC tiles.
Another option is the round tracker ascending income bonus. Here each nation gets additional income based on how long they’ve been playing, round 1 = 1ipc, round 2= 2ipcs, round 3 = 3 ipcs and so on. This not only helps you to keep track of how long you’ve been going at it, but also provides an incentive for the dominant side to resolve the game more quickly, and risk more decisive battle, rather than dragging it out, since the advantage to the underdog gets stron German the longer they can survive into the endgame.
For a more variable approach, another method is to give each nation a “War Bonds” or Wartime Economy bonus. Each player nation rolls 1d6 at collect income and adds that to their total ipcs for the round.
Doing stuff like this will give your players at least a little more flexibility during the unit purchase phase, although I still feel that without artillery at 4 ipcs, you will run into problems with players not being able to spend a remainder of 1 or 2 ipcs.
If you don’t have artillery pieces, and don’t mind seeing a lot of armor on the board, you might consider reducing the cost of tanks to 5 ipcs ala Revised/AA50.
Tanks at a cost of 5 accelerates the gameplay, and allows players to at least spend a remainder of 2 ipcs. Otherwise you’re stuck with infantry at the 3 ipcs, and nothing to spend a remainder on unless you go up to 8 for the destroyer or 10 for the fighter. Of course this will turn the board into a tank fest, but honestly it’s better option than OOB, since everyone loves tanks and it gives new players a way to get around the map and knock off territories much faster than the infantry grind.