The T-34 was "better" in a strategic sense because it was built at a much quicker rate than the German tanks. The M4 Sherman also had the advantage of massive assembly line production. Evidently Stalin's industrial 5 year plans in the 1920s and 1930s had a positive effect on war production. The German tanks were usually tactically superior to the M4s and T-34s, unless you consider the oversized Elefant tanks that were introduced at Kursk.

The T-34 (and the Sherman) were also easier to maintain in the field. IIRC, the Germans depended on civilian staffed repair depots. The German philosophy was that young men should be shooting bullets, not turning wrenches, therefore much of the maintenance and battle damage repair was done by factory tech reps, assisted by foreign "guest workers". The running gear on the later model German tanks was so complicated you needed a factory tech rep to fix it. Another German problem was the ever changing drivetrain components, which required different repair parts. Supplying repair parts became a logistical nightmare. Many a Tiger tank was abandoned in France and the Ukraine in 1944 because the Germans couldn't find the right fuel pump, electrical parts, etc...
The bottom line is that the German tanks were too complex, too expensive, too large and heavy for muddy terrain/small bridges/and narrow roads, and suffered from increasingly poor quality control .

The US Army would repair M4 Shermans on the battlefield. When I was a young man I had a good friend that was a WWII tank mechanic who worked at battalion level. He said that his team would roll up to a battle damaged Sherman, and repair it on site. They got so good at it they could swap out engines in less than an hour. Their vehicle was a Sherman that had the turret replaced with a boom that ran off a power takeoff. The object was to recover , repair, and re-crew battle damaged tanks as fast as possible to replenish combat power.

Yes, Christie suspension was invented by an American, but for some reason the US tanks were designed with a track support system that used support rollers and road wheels linked in pairs. The Soviets bought an American tank in 1930 which had Christie suspension, and their factories copied the design. IIRC, the main fault of christie suspension is that it gives a terrible ride when the tank is driven cross-country. Of course crew comfort was the last consideration on Soviet tank designers' minds....just take a look in a T-34 turret and that becomes very apparent. How the heck did they cram three guys into the T-34/85 turret, unless the red Army tankers were midgets. The bigger Soviet tanks had conventional support roller suspension (the KV- 1s and -2s, and the IS1 and 2 Stalin tanks.

BTW, there was only one model of Soviet tank that was designed to be driven at a faster rate of speed with it's track removed, the 15 ton BT-5 and BT-7 light tanks. The problem was that it was a real PITA to break track, stow it on the tank, and re-assemble the track. Besides, the tank was designed to move only on it's roadwheels on paved roads....it's crosscountry mobility was cut to zero without the tracks. That was a tactical kiss of death if BT-5s or -7s had to deploy off road to engage the enemy or avoid enemy air attack.

The bogs in northern Europe preserve armored vehicles pretty well. The Patton Museum at Ft Knox has a German assault gun, I think it's a STuG III, that was dragged out of a watery grave in a swamp in Estonia or Latvia in the mid-1990s. The paint, although weathered, is still good.