I know for sure they could not stop the engines during the coldest winter or had to make fire under the tank to start them back the following day... I did not know T 34 had problems...
It was problem for each army (not from good life, t34 crew started fire under tank). USF had little troubles with that because Sherman has heater (small engine for heating) to warm engine. It was popular to warm inside tank when you are waiting on position. Because start of main engine to heat yourself was...costly and resource of engine decreased.
Still It does not answer the question: Why the Zis 3 76mm canon of the T 34 is so shitty in the game... It was a balance question aiming to stick the reality of the machine, not an historical question....
It was not zis-3 gun, only su-76 had zis-3 gun. T34 gun was F34 (best to 1941, but bad to 1943).
I just wanted to point 2 things : Russian have no Mobile turret tanks able to down a large tank. and the SU 85 or ISU 152 are very low compared to Jag and Elephant... This is where the trouble stand for me... The fact that russian have no mobile anti tank option in the game while they had amazing sturdy tanks... ok no Radio, bad optic. Give it a low accuracy (it has it already) a poor fiel of view (it has it already).
But it has a wonderfull canon. give it the punch it deserve especially because russian have no such thing in their arsenal.....
Soviet has t34-85 as mobile tank destroyer (500 meters and you can kill tiger on front). Su-100 is close equivalent to Elephant, it was pure tank destroyer. Radio (thanks to lend lease, soviets could make their copy of british tank radio for tanks), good optics, good shells (thanks to lend lease gun powder) all it has t34-85. Isu-152,122 and Is-2 they all for breakthrough germans defense and crushing bunkers, fighting against tanks not was their main role (but they have opportunites to that).
Bad comfort and other cruel things of t34 it's what you have when enemy on your Homeland and you need to evacuate your factories (it was all knew when first t34 was produced, in fact t44 must be new tank, t34 was just timely replacement. And t34-85 has turret from t44). When you fighting for your life, comfort will be the last problem for you.