Historically, Molotovs were used against vehicles, with the aim of hitting the engine vents.
When confronting infantry, they would use proper grenades, that killed instantaneously, a much more desirable result.
The Molotov of CoH2 is asymmetric for the sake of asymmetric.
True, molotov was mostly used as at nade and was almost as effective as shreck in city fights, what's more it is basically the only nade that should couse engine crit as it set tanks engine on fire when thrown on the top of it.
The best thing about molotov was that it was easy to prepare so it was used mostly by irregular forces like partisans, or by soldiers that were not delivered new grenades.
Russians also had really good at granades that killed most german tank instantaneously, the molotov was popular because it was easy to prepare on the front, even with supplies cut.