Isn't urban combat close quarters?
Forest combat can also be close quarters combat, what differentiates urban is Garrison and thus the specialized tools to deal with garrison define "urban specialization.
One could argue that units with flamers or weapons with better modifiers vs garrison like Vamp ST44 or the new G43 are "urban specialized" units.
Shock troops are not particularly good at dealing with cover (compared to other QCQ units) so the claim that shock troops "are urban combat specialists" is simply false.
Shock troops is already one of the most common abilities in COH2 (by adding them to urban defense they become the most common if I am not mistaken).
In addition when Relic asked for suggestion they made it clear that the suggestion should fit the commanders thematically.
Shock troops simply do not fit the theme of "urban defense" since they are not a defensive unit and can prove problematic with the aura buffs available to the commander and forward healing/reinforce.
Neither does a heavy assault gun like the KV-2.
Imo the main reason both units where introduced (and also the Stug-E and storm troopers) was increase the scope of the patch. Again imo that is mistake since the scope is pretty big to begin with and the effort should focus fixing the units and abilities already in scope a goal hardly achieved since there still problems with them. The same approach of expanding the scope was used in previous commander revamp patch and the result where average.
For instance in this patch Valentine if far from a good spot, while its speed when vetted is ridiculously high even without "war speed".