Depends on what you mean by hard-counter. The aim of mgs is to suppress which they all do quite quickly, not what you get angry at is the squad then crawling and throwing a grenade. However the mg had done it's job, it suppressed the infantry squad and was then loyally waiting for you to follow up with another squad of your own infantry to engage (which will keep the squad suppressed) and your mg can relocate.
Pinning is not the goal of mgs, it's suppression. Mgs don't hard-counter infantry by damage it's by suppression making those squads very vulnerable to your own infantry.
Big problem is that a lot of infantry get increased grenade range with veterency(grens are really noticeable, but so are vet 3 USF rifles with bulletins) so in later stages of the game you don't need to get that far into an MGs arc before you can let fly and kill a good portion of the crew. Yes we should scout for them but it's not always possible, especially when you're trying to get back onto the field, last thing you want is to set-up your MG, realize you're out of range and be forced to pack it up and move it up which sees the MG being not that far behind the main line.
Suppression should at least drastically reduce grenade ranges for all inf.