I think the point of one or the other is the trade off of different strengths and weaknesses.
In my opinion Lieutenant is quite dead tier right now.
Don't you agree that Lieutenant tier is heavily underused in current meta?
I think the problem is in abscence of AT. At least for me it is so.
I don't agree that complete absense of AT or suppression is a good design. This is the same problem as with soviet T1/T2 choice. AT and suppression should be balanced between tiers, you just should achieve your goals through different means.
I understand that you can always invest into early zooks, but you can't really chase a light vehicle with them and also they get outranged and kited.
I think that M2HB penetration buff will make it into live servers, but that's just not enough because it will work only against players with bad micro - those who parks their vehicles in front of your MG for a while. DShKa's example has already taught us.
Zooks also quite bad in fighting medium armor. Yes, they penetrate Pz.IVs, they do quite good DPS, but if you use zooks against them you just bleed like a swine.