Is an AT-AT a useful weapon?

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Somewhere I saw a drawing of one squatting down, somhow folding the legs
 


Getting in and out under battlefield conditions would seem to expose the infantry to fire unnecessarily. A ground hugger would get the troopies out a whole lot quicker.

The concept of MICV would mean they don't debark, they fire from behind the protection of the vehicles defences. assuming these are armoured a little better than an M-113 that would be prefereable to exposing your infantry as they attempt to get out of the vehicle. its a favourite tactic in modern warfare. hit the enemy troops immediately after the doors are flung open . Don't open the doors until the threat is either pinned or otherwise neutralised.

The US army has found its Bradleys to be vulnerable when used in the way they were designed . You just cannot provide sufficient armour to either an MICV or APC and still carry a useful load with a useful power to weight.
 
Lucasfilm had no clue what the answer to this was. They just put them in ESB and thought they were cool, without really thinking about the practicality.
However, while preparing the toy lineup, Kenner called them up. Uh, guys? We're trying to design the new AT-AT toy, and we're not sure how the people get on and off. How's it supposed to work? Lucasfilm didn't have an answer.
So, the older books like the Star Wars Source Book or the Star Wars Technical Journal will tell you that they got down onto their knees, to 3 meters above the ground, lowered ramps, and had troops run down the ramps from the body.
However, when the Incredible Cross Sections book came out, the authors derived a different theory. They suggested that rather than have the AT-AT kneel, they instead projected large booms from the body, and had troops rappel down zip lines to the ground.
It's therefore possible that both are correct, and AT-ATs can do either one, but it's not really clear. The technical drawings of Cross Sections, Technical Journal, and Essential Guide all differ in their descriptions of AT-ATs. In other words, the authors just made them up. But usually, the way that canon gets around that is to say that there were many different varieties of AT-AT walkers. In fact, the old Source Book says that some AT-ATs could be configured to carry AT-ST walkers inside them! So it's definitely likely that they had different configurations.
NOW personally I have my own theory:

 
Read somewhere that during the Soviet Afghan war it was safer to leave a disabled APC and fight back rather than sit tight and wait for an RPG up the Wazoo.
One obvious way to leave the AT-AT would be to abseil and using this method troops could be disembarked quickly with their weapons.
 
The AT-AT's high profile 25.5m (84ft) height make concealment essentially impossible and its flat sides, lack of lateral, and rear armament makes them a prime target. In addition they have footpads in place of treads, which greatly increase their ground pressure, and which will cause them to easily sink as compared to treads
They have a high center of gravity and can be easily tripped, which was exploited in the Battle of Hoth. (granted that this was canonically presented as an oversight, albeit a rather stupid one, since most martial arts strongly emphasize lowering your CG.)
They are slower than a modern main battle tank despite their long legs, which one would normally expect to grant additional mobility (max speed 60km/h on flat terrain, compared to 72km/h on flat terrain for the M1A1 Abrams). This is exacerbated by the fact that AT-AT walkers are using fusion power cells as compared to diesel engines.
If the Stormtroopers were to rappel they'd also be prime targets as they dangled 80ft off the ground.
I don't see them as being effective
 

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Any armoured vehicle is only as good as the enemies ability to destroy it.
I do declare the AT-AT was simply a cool looking thing designed for film.
However any tank is toast if it surrounded by a capable well equipped enemy so the AT-AT is no different. It would need infantry support and air power. Perhaps the Empire believed the AT-AT was an infantry support vehicle rather than the spearhead of Blitzkrieg.
 
The US Army never thought to equip the HUEYs with any armament whatsoever and the Bradley has Aluminum!! armor. Aluminum is a flammable reactive metal one notch down from Magnesium. The latest version now has the rear and sides covered with spaced laminate armor. The turret has an additional layer of steel, and the hull bottom has additional anti-mine armor.
The sci-fi AT-ATs can of course be equipped with any type of defensive system imaginable with no real-world limitations
 
The Empire gives it's stormtroopers armour which is made out of cheese so only the Sith know what armour the AT-AT has. Paper-mache?
 
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