I think heavies would be less maligned if they were less likely to end up as dead metal on your team after any close fight. Like if tanks threw a tread and stopped moving forward when below 15% health then heavies would be less of a liability as damage sinks because they'd stop advancing onto fire. Reinforcing your front with shorter ranged tanks only helps when the enemy isn't tossing waves of S-51s* at you.

*The enemy is never not doing this.