The risk of skipping T2 hits you hard the moment first med hits the field.
PGs aren't going to hold off any med for long also, FHT arguably gives you more field presence then early PGs. Once people realize how easily PGs can be abused with lights and light tanks, the skip won't be a problem.
Or to say it differently: skip isn't a problem if you don't have 4 digit rank or aren't playing irrelevant 3v3/4v4 where literally any goofball strat works.
Why get a 251 FHT when you can get a 250
and the Flamer Pio to crew it with for 10 MP more and 30 MU and 30 FU
less?
Why get a Pak Gun when getting PGrens instead saves you 200 MP and 20 FU?
I don't buy into this 'the enemy will just use lights' crap either: non-AAHT light vehicles are just as strong against T2. They'll kill the 222 and 251, and flank the Pak. The unit specialised to deal with them is
wait for it Panzergrenadiers.
And if you're up against lights, you usually want unflankable infantry AT over an AT gun
anyway.
T2 isn't balanced around being optional. Either the Panzershrecks need to be locked behind it, or it needs to
waaaay cheaper.
I think relocking the Shrecks is by far and away the better solution: restoring the old balance of T2 is a lot easier than rebalancing it entirely as a sidetech.
I think T2 skip more powerful than it is at the moment because it is a pretty hard counter to allied infantry spam swarms, which was meta for a good while. So people still doing normal builds and getting hurt by this kind of strat.
But it is entirely counterable.
Of course it can be countered.
External balance isn't the problem. The issue is building T2 is a stupid decision now: the price of it offsets the current advantage of T2 units,
and it slows your teching.
It'd be like UKF teching and building the AEC when they've got the Valentine available.