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Originally Posted by borithan
The Lee/Grant: A poor layout, but the only way to get a 75mm gun into the field quickly. Allegedly known as "a coffin for 7 brothers" to the Soviets, but that may be apocryphal. To be fair, it was always intended as a stop-gap. Still much appreciated by British tankers who finally had something beefy which they could properly attack anti-tank positions with, rather than trying to charge down with machine guns. Difficult to compare directly due to it's odd layout, but probably not as good vehicle all round, but starting to be a contender.
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What was more important is that unlike their Crusaders it wasn't worn out, and the parts supply was better, as for some reason parts for Crusaders never seemed to actually get to where the tanks were. Crusaders with 6-pounders were quite adequate for bullying Pz.IIIs, could deal with Pz.IVs, and could also deal with normal anti-tank guns, as the 6-pounder did have an HE shell. The M3's 75mm gun had a better HE shell, but the tank had those other problems you mentioned.
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The various British cruisers, which were as close to a "medium tank" as Britain produced: Various shades of bad to mediocre. Fast, sure, usually, but often suffered reliability problems, and often either had to choose between being undergunned (2pdr armed designs) or 2 man turrets (many of the 6pdr armed tanks), and a tendency to be lightly armoured, and lacking much (if any) HE capability until outside the mid-war period.
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While it wasn't perfect by any means the Crusader actually did fairly well, all things considered, and the British produced quite a lot of them, and kept using them until they could be replaced by M4 Shermans.