It was as close to universally despised as a mechanic as almost anything in COH2. It will not be coming back if Relic/Balance team are remotely sane.
Eg: Adding insult to injury, volkschreck blobs could effortlessly blow up your vehicles in the middle of blizzards whilst your inf huddled around weak fires. (Cold Package upgrade gave them insulation and the schreck)
Not close to universally, just vocal minority. Especially competitive well known coh2 figures complained about it being in 1v1s.
Most players are not competitive enough to care, fact. Then you have competitive 4v4ers and team players who don't post on forums. Then you have the vocal minority.
I including a lot of folks like coldtech.
So just to counterbalance the vocal minority:
YES YES YES BRING BACK COLDTECH NOW WE WANT IT NOW.
I bought Relic's CoH2, not the tears of crybabies from the community. I want Relic's design and games cuz I like Relic, and I paid for that, what they advertised and made. I bought deluxe edition way back for Soviets, coldtech all that..
I don't really care about what crybabies want, most players (people who just play and don't post on coh2.org all day, maybe sometimes on reddit or official forums or steam (yes they are players too) i.e. 85% of the playerbase) just want Relic's game and it to be better and cooler than vCoH.