That's what double BARs are for though. IMO rifles are some of the best mainlines in the lategame with the investment and the veterancy (but you have to keep them alive lol), and they don't really need help there, especially with excellent sherman HE and good indirect fire options to boot.
They're getting better DPS at mid range in order to make it so that they actually trade well when they're at ideal ranges, and not just barely win out in ideal scenarios (barely because dropping 3 volk models and losing 2 rifle models isn't that great of a trade considering they're more expensive to reinforce and volks will beat rifles pretty handily at long range as they should, and OKW's got a sturmpio out there to trade really well while USF has an RE which can't trade with anything). It's not even going to change point blank engagements anyway if you check the curve too, just more the 6-15 range where they're theoretically supposed to shine and justify that 28 manpower reinforce cost.
I am mainly thinking about the USF vs OST match up. Since grens can only engage in mid to long range, giving riflemen more mid range dps will make OST's early game against USF even worse. OST is already pretty terrible, and I don't want that faction to be unplayable.