1. Soviet bunkers: Would it render balance issues if the Red Army were capable of digging down? I can't see a reason why Soviets shouldn't be allowed to build them. Even Stephennn said in his stream that he doesn't understand why. I also think this would make Soviets more appealing for beginners since we all built sandbags and bunkers back in our first games in CoH1 and holding out for tanks.
Right now it's not uncommon to see +80% searching games as OH in 2vs2 and up.
2. German mines: Why can't OH have "normal" mines like the Soviets? I personally think that the S-Minefield is the Devils creation and not for those who step on it. The Teller mine is awesome and extremely useful but it's not for free and OH got so many other things costing munition. The Riegel mine is also splendid but you rarely see a halftrack survive to late game when you have other priorities on what vehicles you need and what to spend your munition on.
3. Retreat: Why does it take so long before my units actually start running when I hit the retreat button? From what I recall from CoH1 my units started running fairly quickly. Now they rather stand up and salute the enemy a few seconds before they actually turn the other way and head back home. This is what it looks like when one of my units drop the fight:

1. Germans are not well designed for dealing vs bunkers or HMG's with large firing arc (flanking), so adding bunkers and/or HMG with large firing radius would get exploited by good Soviet players.
But I do agree, its a huge problem for beginners that turns them not wanting to play Soviet or at all.
P.S. for all you L2P and micro blah blah blah.. Most of you it took a year + of playing as described by OP. Before being even able to deal with HMG with rifles or volks. So at least try to show some sympathy for people who are YOU, from 6-7 years ago.
We want them to become COH2 addicts, don't we?
2. Agree, S mines take ridiculous amount of time to place, and you cannot place them exactly where you want. I never feel like I will be able to finish them in time, and I don't really wanna spend ammo on putting mines on uncontested point. Yeah, rarely employ them for those reasons
3. Your question pissed me off, because I thought about command lag delay
Bonus question. Your question pissed me off, because I had mental image of terrible pathing my units choose