The primary reason I do not advocate changing major parts of the doctrine, such as the Easy Eight, is because it has been a staple part of the commander from its inception and if you were to move it to a different commander then you now have to rework two commanders.
As far as I can tell, all of the USF commanders are pretty good, with just a few standing out as very good ( Heavy Cavalry ), and Rifle Company standing out as pretty bad.
So I think that a rework of Rifle Company should do these four things:
1. Leave the core features alone so the company plays as similar to how it was originally intended. Easy Eights, Fire Up and WP smoke have got to stay.
2. Combine weak abilities together as a bundle keeping in line with how they are currently being bundled in other commanders.
3. No elite infantry! It’s all about the Riflemen in this commander. Hence the suggested Sergeant upgrade and Riflemen field defenses.
4. Do not make changes that require other commanders to also be adjusted.
I tend to agree with both of you, but I disagree on the easy eight. To me rifle company should be like German infantry doctrine, focused on infantry benefits to riflemen. I did consider adding Rangers, but adding special forces would take away from the theme.
I see your previous point on veteran units being difficult to balance. Perhaps that could be bundled with the veteran leaders in terms of allowing something like 20% faster XP gain, which would then allow another ability to be used. It would be cool if this could follow somewhat the CoH1 infantry company, with the artillery focus. Ideally I'd love to see an actual artillery piece added as the final ability.