I haven't gone back to read the last 18 pages yet, but I just tried out the orcs scaled down to level one, against some PCs I had made up based on what info is available: a half-elf Warlock, an Elf Warlord, a Dragonborn Rogue, and a Halfling Fighter. I decided that it would be very boring to just use minions, so I scaled down an Eye of Grunnish as well. So it was 12 Drudges and one Eye against 4 PCs. I kept it simple, the groups see each other across a large field and leap to the attack.
I caught a few glimpses of the discussion currently taking place, so I'll agree that minions are best used to supplement a leader character. Without the Eye, this would have been much more one-sided. And frankly, perhaps even boring after the first couple rounds.
It was an interesting encounter. As I was doing everything myself and it was my first full-scale test of pre-release 4e rules, it probably took longer than it should. They started about 30 squares apart, and initially there was a lot of charging action taking place. The Eye held back and let the minions form a defensive line about four or five squares ahead of him. (The three melee PCs won highest initiatives, so they had closed most of the distance initially.)
I thought about the Eye's Death Strike ability for a little bit, because it says orcs in range get an extra attack when reduced to zero hit points, but minions don't exactly go to zero HP, they just die. So I wasn't really sure.... I decided to let them get in a final swipe or swing wildly at the PCs as they went down through the Death Strike ability, anyway, as that seemed to be the intent. This is probably where half of the damage the PCs took came from. And they were only hit because the Eye of Grunnish was using the Eye of Wrath power to reduce the PC's AC.
However, with the Halfling Fighter, I eventually realized I could avoid all of those Death Strikes when she took someone down. Tide of Iron lets you push someone away with your shield after you hit them, so I let her stab an orc, and then kick and shove with her shield to push them off her blade and away from the PC's front line, so they weren't in range to retaliate before dying.
Having come up against the orcs and established a front line, however, the Eye was able to use the Chaos Hammer area of attack against two of the three melee characters. The minions were mostly just serving to distract the melee PCs and keep them from going directly after the real threat, and provided him with a defensive line. They slowed down the PCs and tried to herd them into positions where the Eye could take advantage. While minions can be used alone, I wouldn't. They seem to be best used as movable, destructible obstacles that can cause a little damage.
For the Warlock, however, the minions weren't so much obstacles as stepping stones. This was my first actual tactic in the encounter, and one of my favorites. While his melee friends charged into battle, he decided he was going after what appeared to be the leader. He would move up, mark the nearest minion, kill that minion, and get the Fey Pact's teleport to move ever closer to the Eye of Grunnish. Move-Curse-Attack-Teleport. Move-Curse-Attack-Teleport. He did that a couple of times (as the groups started 30 squares apart) and finally got in range, but got the Eye's attention. I think if actual players had been doing this, the warlock would have had the most fun initially.
So, the lesson here is that minions are almost like terrain features. Use them as damaging obstacles or walls to protect the real threat, or as objects for the PCs to play off of by using their abilities and keep things interesting. But don't use them alone if you want an interesting encounter.
All told, one character nearly got bloodied, had to burn a healing surge during the fight with help from the Warlord's Inspiring Word, and they all could have stood to use one by the time it was over, so one healing surge per character was effectively spent. Other than that, no expendable resources were used up. It seemed a little challenging at first because of sheer numbers, and then when it was down to just the PCs and the Eye I was worried they wouldn't do enough damage to him to kill him before he got to use the Warrior's Surge to keep healing himself, but other than that the outcome was never really in doubt. The encounter probably would have entertained and engaged actual players, but wouldn't cause them to break much of a sweat. Of course, I was a little slow on the uptake on some possible strategies (like the fighter using Tide of Iron to avoid the retaliatory strikes from the minions allowed by the Eye's Death Strike ability) because I was trying to run all the characters myself. Actual players, focused only on their own character sheets, probably would have made things slightly easier for their PCs.
Mostly what I took away from it was a general sense of 4e, and that minions aren't something to use alone, unless you want a dry and predictable battle, but they can be useful to stall PCs so that the true threats to them have time to act.
Don't know if that adds anything to the discussion or not. (I guess I'll have to go back and see.)
Edit: In reference to whether it's worth it to scale or not, and pitting level one PCs against higher level minions. My strong opinion: Yes, scale them down. It's not about how easy it is for the PCs to take down minions. It's about how easy it would have been for the minions to have killed at least one PC in a tide of orcs, if their attack bonuses and damage hadn't been reduced by scaling. They aren't any easier or harder to kill depending on level, I'd imagine. But they can hurt a lot before you're able to take them all down. The first character to gain initiative charged right at the orcs, and got hit four times in the first round (of actual fighting, after distance was closed) because the Eye reduced his AC and then the minions started whacking on him. If the minions hadn't been scaled, it could have eventually turned ugly in terms of damage.
Again, think of them as damaging, destructible terrain features. Like a wall of thorns that moves around and grunts.
