No.
Because the latter is actively penalizing people for not being a certain class.
I completely disagree, on several levels.
1) I'm allowed to give out extra gold based on character classes. If I start passing out 50 gold to each Warrior on every tax period, and then stop giving one of them the gold after they switch to priest, is that illegal? After all, I'm now penalizing that guy for no longer being a warrior.
2) Controlling estate sizes based on character class, or even unit type, is no different than manually handing out gold on a weekly basis using the same criteria. I tell people in Sandalak flat out that if they are recruiting SF, then I won't give them any extra gold to help with their unit. Everyone else gets whatever I have, whenever they ask. Am I actively penalizing people for recruiting a specific unit type, because I choose to actively withhold that bonus?
3) The game's tax system used to be specifically geared around controlling how much tax gold was given to each character based on their class. It was common practice to give warriors the largest tax share, infils a medium share, and bureaucrats a small share. If you changed class, you changed tax shares. The banker could even say "I don't like infils, they are dishonorable, so I will give them the minimum possible tax share", which was pretty much equivalent to a tax income of 0. Neither the game rules nor the IRs have changed since then. If we were allowed to dole out taxes according to character class back then, and provide bonuses/penalties based on them, then there is absolutely no reason that we can't do the same now.
4) What your combination of answers does is create entitlements out of bonuses and generosity. You have stated that it's OK to be generous toward specific classes, but that once you start being generous, that generosity turns into an entitlement that cannot be withdrawn under threat of OOC punishment.
