Profile of rofltehcat

The survival buff from 3 to 4 men was mainly required to make the MG42 able to survive long enough to retreat from a sniper or M3 flamer car. Plus before that German support weapons were simply too vulnerable to mortars/tanks, but this affected mainly AT guns and mortars. In addition, the Soviet mortar firing speed was decreased, not sure if that one was really needed for the 82 mm mortar though.
Before that, on many maps the German early game consisted basically out of spamming Grenadiers because all other build orders were dominated by M3 flamers.

One thing that consistently happened before the buff to the crew size and some nerfs to the Maxim was that Maxims were way too strong (basically unkillable, unflankable, extreme DPS), I think this is what Nullist is refering to when talking about balance between the two HMG units. The Maxim is still a lot more survivable but I think the Maxim needs some minor buffs now and might be pushed into a completely different role, making comparisons between the two pretty hard because we do not know when/if/how those changes will come.

If you reduce it back to 3 men those other problems are likely to resurface. Thus, the changes to the MG42 need to be done on another front.
There have been many suggestions about that like increasing small arms damage across the board but that would also require buffing the armor of all other infantry (just nerfing the MG42 crew armor to increase small arms damage against it is impossible/doesn't do anything because penetration chances over 100% don't seem to do anything). Such a change would be interesting but would ultimately overthrow balance across the whole board, so this will never happen.
One thing that was done was the fix to bonus accuracy and the point blank mechanics but that only improves Vet 2 flanking performance vs. everything and the problem seems to exist mainly in the early game.

But ultimatelly, what Nullist is trying to tell you is that just removing the fourth man from the squad will have pretty severe effects and most likely just break the unit again. I think he made a good effort on that HMG thread he made but even that one got derailed.
I think some people like arguing and derailing threads just for the sake of it. And this includes "both sides" <- There never should be a "side" you take when talking balance.

I think the meta will shift again but they also have to be careful not to shift it into just another undesirable state leading to stale gameplay.
M3 spam, Grenadier spam, HMG42 spam... none of this makes for good matches.

Men of War is great! Not easy to get into though and incredibly frustrating to be blown up by a Russian player from halfway across the map because they 100% hit some sort of weak spot in a shot that shouldn't really have been possible... grrr, still don't know how they do that.

Nothing was changed on MG42s in last patch.

People try to make it out as if something went suddenly and dramatically wrong, and accusing Relic of retardation and what not kinds of insults.

MG42 is today exactly the same it was 2 months ago.

Infact the ONLY change it has received including open beta, was a 4th man, to bring it to 3/4 the survival of a Maxim. Before that same patch, Maxims absolutely assraped MG42s, and had done so throughout closed and open beta, and no sov fanbois even batted a fucking eyelid.

Yes they have been like this for a long time but the recent AT Grenade/Panzerfaust/Armored Car changes have shifted meta a bit and made going for flamer scout cars (drive it up to a MG42, roast it then kill it on the retreat back to base) more risky/less viable.

Before, there was an easy (some might even call it cheap) counter to the MG42 that can now be fought off easier.
Thus, some problems like too inefficient flanking became a lot more evident.
At the same time, two maps on which the MG42 is very powerful were introduced to the game. I think that may be the strongest influence on the perceived problem.

It is just a lot of stuff coming together at one time.
I really hope Relic aren't too zealous in their nerfing.
MG-spam might be not fun to play against but playing gren spam just to not get torn a new one by M3s was neither.

The thing is that you can still get the win when the other guy kicks you and the more those guys kick people, the more often other people get a win anyways and the kicking guy gets a loss.

This is not correct. They have exactly the same armor a Grenadiers and Panzergrenadiers and they have a larger squad size, which means the squad has more health than those two.