re: How were German armored divisions so much more elite than their US counterparts

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The Panzer IV's base design began production in 1936. It was not a heavy tank. I was upgraded throughout the war, but, never to the level of a heavy tank. History shows that by late 1944 the Panzer IV was obsolete.

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It was a workhorse and the most produced German tank. They used it for everything. However, you're correct - it was never a heavy tank (maybe when it was first fielded, by comparison, it might have been called "heavy") - it was their "general purpose"/infantry support tank. The Panzer III was the tank with the focus on fighting other tanks.

What happened was - in the gap between the III/IV era and the late war V/VI (Panther/Tiger) era, was the T-34. The Germans required bigger and bigger guns to kill T-34s. As the IV had a bigger turret ring, it was more easily retrofitted with bigger guns. The roles, sort of, flipped for a short period, and ultimately they just quit making IIIs and kept cranking out IVs until the new generation of tanks were ready (ETA: This is technically incorrect - the Germans produced IVs until the bitter end, but they intended to ultimately field nothing but Vs and VIs).

If anything, the modern Main Battle Tank, is a descendent of late war T-34 and Panther models, rather than the Tiger, in other words, a tank designed to do everything fairly well. We've just developed the capacity to make them very well armored and very lethal, while maintaining relatively high mobility.