The last 1v1 tourney you saw mostly involved penal openings because it was literally the only thing that worked against OKW due to the M3. Things are fine as they are right now, cons and penals are both in a nice spot imo.
Are you referring to the patch? Or in their current state? If it is the latter... then afaik volks/sturms/stock cons remained untouched for quite a long time...which has always been a losing fight for stock cons... especially vs stg volks... and 7 man cons comes waay to late to save the game at T4
Not sure how the volks nerfs change this dynamic though... but do note that lmg grens and stg volks still come earlier than 7 man cons even at T3