Profile of nee

I'd rather not see a non-combat, unarmed unit require so much micromanagement to be useful in the first place.

Obvious fix is to just have the detection not count stealthed units, re snipers. But I can't help but assume Relic is just not capable of delivering such a technical feat as tweaking IR halftrack's beam characteristics.

Oh, and yes of course same should be for Valentine tank's ability.

Thing about the paradrop idea is that it's useless, not merely too expensive. By the time you unlock it you've got other units to field than two paratroopers.

Lelic plz fix existing commanders before releasing new ones.

Their idea of fixing commanders is, precisely, to release new ones.

As for the OP, great ideas. Not so much improved but fixed and does what it says: light recon and support. Flares and Forward Obs are pretty much the same thing, the only difference is one doesn't need buildings but cost munitions, and vice versa for the other, and both require Riflemen. Greyhound should act like T-70 with an observer toggle that disables weapons, or a cloak that disables movement but can ambush enemies. IR Pathfinders can spawn from ambient buildings and act like spotter infantry, there's a cut feature for UKF where infantry can toggle to cloak and increase sight range, but unable to move; if you want combat support, they should have the Snipe ability from AA where you snipe a target for cooldown and munitions, great to deal with depleted squads like Panzergrenadiers or Obers or to finish off a gun crew.
Given so many recon abilities I don't think they'd need Recon Overflight. I'm thinking a generalist off-map ability, if IR Pathinders don't have their 155mm artillery. Either the 155mm artillery from Mechanized Company, or maybe an offmap 60mm mortar barrage?

Lack of a reason means no.

Cosncripts an Volksgrenadiers fill different roles. ke, five roles.
Or to be more specific, Conscripts fill three very different roles than the three roles Volks fill.

Conscripts: Merge, Urrah, AT criticals, meant to be (heavily) replaced with Penals/ Shocks/ Guards, three support crew weapons; more or less minor role once vehicles come in.

Volks: Basic AT, replacing with call-ins/ Obers isn't really necessarily, meant to support only two crew weapons; they remain rather viable or necessary in later game phases due to Panzerschreck.

What they have in common: meatshield blobbing, recrewing weapons or vehicles, area denial (molotov/ incendiary grenade), provide numbers and supporting better units.

I do personally think Conscripts' roles can be expanded. Not to mimic Volksgrenadiers' roles (if anything it's Volks mimicking Conscripts), but I'm talking like toggle a lockdown mode that makes them imobile but can heal nearby units (basically a squad-based ambulance/ medic HQ) or even provide forward retreat point. Soviets have neither of these and a commander-based feature that does this can really help with Soviet manpower bleed, especially on larger matches or maps where travel distance affects their efficiency.

If we really need to even the scales between these two units (given faction differences I do not think a 1-1 comparison is justifiable), then reduce cost for Molotov, and/or make the animation faster.

Remove the commandesr you don't have a problem with, the fact that you list a specific list of commanders to fix more or less implies the ones you leave out have no issue. Which also means your OP's size is smaller.