No they where not.
They where very expensive, they couldn't get vet and their basic use was to spawn near a sniper and try to kill them.
The main issue with weapons that critical kill is when they are available in units that can be spammed.
My suggestion would be to either increase the CP of these units or greatly increase the CD of the ability so that one can use up to 1-2 of these units in his army composition.
they did... they had better crit than pathfinders then and had a multitude of abilities in contrast to the beacon for pathfinders...even before the buff ive seen some people use jagers as DMR recon squads like the pathfinders but better...
and your suggested nerf still doesnt fix its ridiculously cheap price... 280 + reduction to 60% crit or nerf it to 340mp