I disagree with your point on the Molotov. Molotov doesn't rely on a German's carelessness, it, like all grenades in this game, benefit massively from lag and input delay which make them unavoidable. It is no more obvious than it is when you see a Gren squad backing up to range for a Rifle Nade.
This brings me to my next disagreement;
Grenadiers are of appropriate strength. The Rifle Nade minimum range is larger than the Molotov range full stop. You have to actively disengage to get into range for a Rifle Nade, and a good player knows this and will just follow you to stop that happening. He maintains close range for his Molotov and you are out of range of the Rifle Nade. Rifle Nade is also effected by cover, flame weapons like Molotovs aren't.
The LMG42 is a necessary upgrade to ensure Grenadiers scale. It's intended to allow Grenadiers to fill the role of intermediate assault trooper, something between Grenadiers and PzGrens, like how a Penal Battalion is between Conscripts and Shock Troopers. Conscripts have similar scaling in terms of Oorah and Merge, which allows them to be useful for reinforcing heavier troops like Penal Battalions, Guards Rifles, AT Guns, Maxims and Shock Troopers, both for a major tactical advantage when timed correctly and for cheaper reinforcement costs after an engagement.
And just as a side note, while MG42 teams are very difficult to flank, they have a slower tear down/set up time than Maxims, which is meant to compensate for its larger arc of fire. My belief on this subject as a whole is that infantry should do more damage. In CoH1 an infantry engagement would happen very quickly, unless both squads were in green cover. I don't think it happens quick enough in CoH2 to make standard flanks with Grenadiers/Conscripts viable without spamming munitions costs.
And another side note; I made a post about the T34, and I'll just quote it for simplicity.
I agree that the position of balance with the T34 is incredibly precarious - it would be fine if Soviet tech weren't so awkward.
Right now the T34/76 is kind of lackluster in that when you're pumping it out you'll come into contact with enemy armour very soon after, which pretty much means your scare unit that lets you dominate the field is now more or less useless. What the problem is, is that you no longer have any other tier 2 units to transition into to bring balance and be scary to the PzIV and other German tanks. The T34 is it.
This role would be filled magnificently well by the SU-85 if it wasn't so powerful. It's considered too strong for a tier 3 unit as it stands, it would be ridiculous in tier 2.
It's all got to do with Soviet tech. The T34 on paper is a perfectly fine tank. Arguably overpowered due to Ram(I know I've made that argument before, but on playing with it more I don't really follow that). But take into account that Soviet tech is non-linear, and because it's not linear the teching times and the costs are really high. This also explains the cheap price of the SU-85 with regards to performance.
Basically, what the Soviets need to address the T34 issue, is an upgun from T34/76 to the T34/85. Reduce the anti-infantry capability and make it a challenger to tanks. Basically a Russian PzIV. Nullist has suggested this quite a few times.
The problem with this would be the the T34/85 itself. Right now it's flat out a better unit. It doesn't fill a niche, it's a straight upgrade. Usually Soviets float quite a bit of munitions because they're not upgrading their infantry with weapons. So any sort of munitions cost you add to the upgun upgrade would essentially be meaningless, unless it was so absurdly high nobody would buy it.
As a result, you may as well end up removing the T34/76 and replacing it with the T34/85 and boost up the price, and come up with a new doctrinal ability. Perhaps the KV-1 as opposed to the T34/85.
Just my thoughts on the matter.