This is wrong on so many levels.
Nobody is even talking about Balanced Kenshi zoning anymore, coz there is nothing to talk about. Its bad, situational at best.
The problem with Balanced Kenshi is the fact his core tools are mediocre at best and that variations adds to it almost nothing beside EX Push.
His 4,2(1) string is slow as fuck and starts with high in a game where many characters have advancing strings (with gaps but nobody cares about them anymore) as fast as 7-9 frames. B1 is okish coz its -1 on block, other then that nothing to write home about, pretty slow (13f) and there is no way anybody gonna hit confirm it, not to mention its not a true mid (althou thats a common thing).
His poking game is just abysmal (Kenshi in general) and his backdash... what backdash?
There is no mind games vs Balanced Kenshi, block low, tech throws and bully him on oki usually baiting EX Push which is easy to jump over and even if blocked does nothing for him.
Balanced Kenshi is like Kenshi without any variation really, the only thing worth mentioning that it adds is again EX Push.
There is pletora of characters/variations in the game which are better by miles in mid range / neutral then Balanced Kenshi that's the reality.
I agree with you thou that Possessed is vastly overrated but i disagree with the statement that Balanced Kenshi is almost as good as Possessed. The last one at least has usable overhead and godlike armor + teleport gimmick. Balanced only have mediocre / bad core Kenshi moves (which all variation have obviously) + EX Push.