I guess this is sarcasm but do you really think it should require 4 squads, each costing more than the mg itself, plus the additional ammo cost for grenades to counter this one cheap starter unit for ostheer? If he had a 2nd mg backing up the first one on that map your flank would probably have just been shut down immediately. Anything can work vs bad players but balance is not determined by the theoretical possibility that countering a unit is possible. Balance is achieved when the effort in countering a unit is comparable to the effort required to use a unit.
Its easy to try making this a L2P, try flanking issue but the fact is that good players anticipate a flank and focus on choke points, plant mines, and have secondary units available to break up a flank, or rely on off-map abilities like strafe. If flank execution is much more difficult and requires much more micro than preventing a flank does then balance is off.
You are correct to some extent but abilities like smoke and oraah level the playing field. The trick is to spread out your units and to activate smoke/oraah on second squad to advance behind the mg. Once you are behind it it has to retreat on most occasions. Where it becomes complicated is when mgs are spammed which is why most people in this thread are advocating changes that limit a player ability to build multiple mgs. The downside to multiple mgs is they are vunerable to vehicles and lack mid to lategame punch, there will also be less grens or less vetted grens.
In regard to your point about increasing the packup time,that will simply result in grenades being the primary counter and we will be back to no skill gameplay. Molotovs are a soft counter to the mg forcing it move where it is then extremely vulnerable to flanking squads.
Choke points and deep snow are map issues and should be addressed separately. Maps like Semosky can be hard if you are passive and allow mgs to get a foothold but coh1 was no different. If Ost takes the centre and places 3mgs there, usf should have no problem securing both fuels and without that early fuel Ost is screwed.