Considering that the scenario is on the same planet country vs country:
For landing troops from a strategic point of view a very niche use case scenario where you need x heavy armed extremely well trained guns at point C without going through point A and B, in the case of cargo/munition etc sure it makes sense but if you already have troops in the area you most likely control the area and can transport by land or air which would make it cheaper than a drop pod program.
Not mentioning ofc the fact that if your troops are surrounded the corect (not ethical*) strategic decision is to let them get captured then try to rescue them rather than sending them munition which might get in the hands of the enemy and just prolong the fight which will end up killing more of your troops.
Heavy armored vehicles sorta make sense only if used to move them fast at choke points and surprise the enemy.
Planet vs planet scenario: Most effective way to take the fight to the enemy , landing a full fledged starship might result in being to difficult. So rather than losing trillions of $ in a starship destruction if we lose a few pods/troops at most it will be a few millions .
To summarize: For most combat situations drop pods would be absurd both strategically and economically. Not to mention that any anti air defense system would result in heavy loses .
Edited* : Just a thing i forgot : if you have the tech to launch effectively and rather securely pods on X location where most likely there are enemies ... i would suggest dropping some MOAB/FOAB s -like sized bombs rather than risking the life of your troops.