I cannot remember when it has been different to be honest. This game was always full of spam.
Pretty much. That's the flaw of CoH, it's a spam and teching race. Blobbing needs to be punished. Badly. OKW gets away with this too many times. Soviets somewhat less. US Rifles Some what less also. OST gets slapped around too easily so they build 2-3 MG's just to cover ONE sector at times.
I made a suggestion in another thread to introduce a mechanic that allows squads to REALLY share damage if grouped too close. I'm talking about if 1 squads gets shot at and they have another squad next to or behind them, they BOTH take damage. Space them out.