I agree on most points really clear and thought out. But do not fully agree on aoe survivability. It gets naded and wiped more often then 4 men mg,s. The deathloop and mediocre supression without vet and the ability are the cause. Clearly soviet faction perks dont compensate this. The most survivable mg gets wiped the most...
Some stats such as suprresion or damage matter more then hp or setup. Having good supression means taking far less damage from inf then the other way around.
Not saying maxim should get mg42 suprresion, we know how that turned out while keeping its hp and mobility. Its just it should not be able to get naded frontaly as frequently as it does, the deathloop triggers pretty easely after this.
Agreed, i meme´d a little on the AoE survival but its also true that maxims are the best among other HMGs at surviving mortar shells, of course they still suffer splash damage but they have more models to spare.
Axis pgren nades are mini nukes and riflenade has big AoE, as you pointed out it often causes maxim wipes.
I think maxims is a more niche HMG that fails at being a core unit for SU. I think that its intentional that maxims dont perform so well so SU player try to steal axis or recover allied HMGs because that puts them on top of the food chain.
Flamenade Dot could be decreased to disencourage deathloop, or simply changed by a normal grenade.
The deathloop also happens to all other HMGs when outnumbered. But on maxims as you said, its an exploitable bug.