There's an irrational hatred against snipers.
There is hatred, but it is not irrational. They do not fit into the core cover gameplay because they ignore it. Furthermore Relic has failed to provide proper counters and has made the mistake (again) to not give all factions access to one. This makes them very annoying to deal with for many players, especially when you are playing OKW or USF.
I dislike them as well, I think they should have been replaced by recon squads like JLI or Pathfinders with more utility. Do note though that this is just my personal opinion, I didn't weigh in on these sniper changes as it's more of a 1v1 affair.
I do think the current changes to the sniper might be fine on their own but that they might be a bit too much in conjunction with the HMG crew formation changes because this causes some issues. Something to keep an eye on.
Btw: what you described happened to the Scott. One tournament game where it performed well because OKW kept playing into it and everybody is screaming for nerfs.
The Scott has been on the list of overperforming/annoying units to tackle for years. It's been touched before but those changes haven't had the desired effect yet. Now they're being followed up on. The Scott has been on both my and Miragefla's balance wishlists for months. We would never let 1 game or 1 player, or outcry because of 1 game, influence decision making.