I often kill Shocks with PG's, I even kill ass grens with Cons without ppsh or molotov.
P.S. I am sure you forgotten that shocks die from snipers, AC's, tanks, HMG's etc just like you described in your version of VCOH
The second one is easy, it is just keeping in range.
PG 1v1 and win shocks is impossible, or just RNG god smile upon you.
Of course I know snipers/flamed ht win shocks, but that means it was forcing the player to get the hard counters, vCOH was never like that. If I want, I can do all crazy strat like 6 Volks to StuG IV or 7 PG to Hotchkiss or 5 221 SC start without worrying a M8 fuck up all my army. Creative soft counters are missing in COH2