I am currently playing BF1, and in one of the loading screens it says "Most German armor during WW1 came from captured British and French tanks". While I don't doubt this is true as the Germans had no idea the tank was in development until its debut in September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Anyway what compelled them to come up with a tank design such as the bulky A7V. Why not combine elements of both the Mark V series of tanks, and the Renault FT-17 with much lower profiles.

I don't think lower profiles would have mattered, as the two most casualty producing weapons were artillery and machine guns, so lower profile would not have made much of a difference since there were no real tank on tank battles and no anti-tank weapons, per se.

As for copying the Brits or French, the tanks were such a new creature that I don't think anyone had a good idea of what a "good" tank should look like or how it should perform. It was nothing but an infantry support weapon at that time.

It is funny how Germany took to the tank and has been a leader in tank development ever since WWI.

The german's were fighting a defensive war by the time the tank came along. So the german tanks were essentially mobile machine gun bunkers. Drive them into place in a weak part of the line or to secure a penetration park it and stop the infantry.

The British and French were designing tanks to cross vast barbed wire fields and trenches so that the infantry could come along behind, secure and exploit the gap. Tanks were infantry support vehicles until the last half of WW2 and even then still did the majority of their work in support of infantry attacks.