I wouldn't mind a Penal buff, but buffing Cons? No way. Con spam is still exceptionally strong in the hands of adept players. It provides amazing map control and you end up with so many squads that you can pull off crazy flanks. It was recently one of the most meta strategies for Soviets.
The only changes that have really made Con spam less viable were the nerf to AT grenades against medium and heavy armor, the MG buff, and now the ptrs nerf. And maybe the rise of CAS? But really, does that mean Cons are bad now? Absolutely not. Just means you can't just spam Cons and stall for call ins using oorah -> at nade like they used to. Hence the incorporation of guards into a lot of Soviet build orders lately.
And flame crit change which makes initial hit of molotov crap - and they still have penalty at vet 0 for the early game. Cons in late game are absolutely pudding, the worst scaling and usage as everything at that point tears them up and they become redundant in their squad size and whatever advantage they had early game. At a point where everything shoots them to pieces, why not be able to pay more to make them better? Or something else.
Its the only base infantry squad hindered in the late game. If they are supposed to remain crappy farmers that they are depicted as, then some transfer orders ability from tier 4 for a small mp refund... Because crappy farmers cant get gud after dying and killing Germans all day and cant git better weapons.