Soviets played fine before land lease and before penals got ptrs. Even competitively they were chosen many times. Even in GCS vonivan showed that he doesn't need land lease or penals to win.
Conscripts are not crap. People just don't want to invest fuel into inf units when they don't have to. But that was original Soviet design. Penals are now an easy version non fuel requiring infantry. An easy button. Of course conscripts suck in comparison.
You can't a+move maxim now that easily. It got a reasonable amount of Nerf. Once again just because dshka is clearly OP - yeah the maxim sucks in comparison. I'll give you that.
You assume i just a move my mg, which is false. To say the truth, i don't use M4c + DSHK. Try to avoid these judgments.
But Maxim needs vet 2 to supress properly, which is not fine. Especially when the mg cost 260mp. Penals are not easy to play at all. They drop models very easily and they are very expensive. Plus, you don't have much on the field when execute a penal strat.
Cons sucks, they can't handle a single model wipe on the back.To wipe that model you need the minimum of health. Grenadier and voksgrenadier are able to kill one to three models on the back with upgrades. So cons have a chance early, and are raped into the mid/late.
And i think pro use what they want, they have a high knowledge of the game,and make work strategies with efficiency. And there is some fail. Like Jesulin who tried a penals start against Amstrong. It's easy to get examples from tournaments. Von Asten make some conscripts strategies, and they are raped in the late game against volks very easily as well. If people go for an abuse, that's because of the lack of conscripts. Translate by maxims spam ect ...
Anyway, the unoficial balance team give me right. They intend to buff conscripts so. I don't think i am that wrong.
I am not a soviet fan boy, i play ostheer and soviets almost equally.