After 25 march patch came another one who fixed the grenades damage. It's not a rule anymore that a rifle grenade must kill 4 maxim member crew.
In fact, if a molotov kills 25-30% of a german crew and rifle grenade kills 50% of maxim crew, adding the amo cost diference stated above, we will obtain a quite balanced situation. I mean, if I fire the molotov or the rifle grenade while being in the hmg arc of action, I will withdraw my squad after doing it, no matter if we are speaking about cons or grens because my squad will be supressed anyway and pin is not far away. If in the same situation my con or gren squad will be in green cover, situation changes and will be favourable to my squad no matter the distance.
So, see, I don't think distance is an issue as I don't think balance betweeen those two weapon types is broken.
Rnades are unlock automatically while teching, have greater range, deals "consistent" damage and has a higher cost. But since we no longer need quick FHT, those muni can be spend more freely early game. Also the time reaction you need to dodge a Rnade compare to any other nade AND specially molotovs is higher.
Molotovs needs to be use on CQC, don´t do consistent damage due to relay on crits. You generally dodge most of it´s damage. The need to rush to use them make the users suffers from casualties from small arm fire.
Maxims doesnt have "area" supression so it´s just easy to frontally assault it. Also since you can Rnade from distance, the amount of supression you receive is even less. Combine that with a smaller arc and that means that 2 Grens can easily dislodge a Maxim + Con/CE supported.
Since the previous patch, Oorah + Molotov doesnt work frontally. A molotov may or may not kill a single entity meaning that you can easily dodge even if you are hit by it. An MG + Gren/Pio deals enough damage to scare away 2 Cons.
Obviously both situations may go either to or other side, but with patch, Rnade is just an easy consistent choice of dealing dmg.