They have Oorah, and cons out scale them quite easily flames or not. The satchel is a victim of the explosives effects on buildings changes, where before 10 muni infiltration grenades were bringing down houses. Buffing the satchel alone will leave T1 right where it is, don't do it. Needs some flavour. Even the tiny 45mm AT peashooter to tide you over to T3 would be something as your completely arse in the wind to vehicles.
Really? Shit did I just forget about that or was it patched in awhile ago?
Without PPSH I don't really see how cons scale better. But I don't know vet bonuses so maybe they overshadow the later on. But the early game impact of penals is pretty high.
It will leave it right where it has been for years, perfectly fine. Although if you ask me, I always preferred when shock troops and guard rifles had to be purchased from T1. I kind of feel like having easy access to maxim's and shocktroops is pretty ridiculous.
There's lots of AT options for Soviets if they go T1. They can tech T2 pretty cheap, AT grenades and mines are always good and then there's doctrinal AT. Partisan Tank hunters, guard rifles etc that can fill in the gaps and have great synergy with the scout car as an AT patrol.
The mistake a lot of people make imo is going straight to t3 without doctrinal AT to fill in their gaps. Of course you're going to have a hard time with flak halftrack or a 222 if you skip t2 and don't have doctrinal AT. Even then, it's entirely possible to kill both just with AT grenades. (Although you're better off with a mine + AT grenade.)