Just wondering if you know of any good videos that illustrate the physics? Admittedly I was never much of a Coh1 fan, but coming back to it now I find it so hard to see many of the things that people continue to praise. On the other hand, physics in Coh2 is one of the things that impressed me the most.... still I definitely try to keep an open mind to new information, and the history of the franchise is really interesting to me.
Seriously go play some coh and see what I mean - as for the physics they were phenomenal. Maybe the men flying was exaggerated but everything in that game was destructible and effected by physics - it is a masterpiece.
I think you're dismissing a few things unfairly: indirect fire accuracy is definitely still a thing; unit reactions are also a thing but IIRC this was put on a timer in a patch last year because there was too much loss of infantry responsiveness under heavy fire; not sure what you mean by individual vehicle components as the same front/rear armour thing is still used.