Imo the recovery trucks will either be pointless or OP under certain circumstances like being able to recover super heavy tanks.
With my suggestion balancing the performance of the unit will become easier while keeping a unique mechanism.
I think relic wants to keep the possibility of "capturing enemy vehicles" in the game but instead of locking the possibility behind one faction (coh1) or leaving it to a bs RNG mechanic (coh2).
They try to actually play around it balance-wise with more access to such recovery vehicles, which are more fragile in turn and added costs to the recovery (Which as of right now are quite hefty).
In this way, it would make it possible for tournaments for example to minimize what used to be RNG without modding the game (coh2) by simply disallowing vehicle recovery.
So in the end for me, I dont mind if its really hard to pull off or it being a "once in while" thing thus probably considered pointless.
Its a waaaaay better mechanic than abandon criticals imo.