I didnt limit it to that.
I asked you to explain what relevance the survival increase has to them, since you seem to think it was a shit change.
Again, you ask to explain why water is wet.
The 3 to 4 man change caused flanking to be a hundred times harder. If the mg has more health it can stay fielded longer, and thus suppress/pin more squads. It means that a successful flank almost never results in a player actually losing his mg42 since the healthpool of the unit is enormous, and there is all the time in the world to retreat.
Before going from 3 to 4 men we hardly saw german players make more than 1 mg. Because of this change we can see the metagame switch to german players making 2, sometimes even 3 mgs.
Also, in regards to the metagame: the way bigger survivability of the MG42 combined with the big fire arc combined with the instapin bulletin combined with the ability to switch targets in buildings (Semoskiy) means this unit becomes godlike.
THIS is what a metagame is about Nullist. It's not just about comparing the MG42 to the maxim like you are doing.