Shauk

There is a hardcore mode....

Getting owned by snipers doesn't matter unless you're playing offense and you have limited tickets or whatever.

on the flip side, snipers on offense are pretty goddamn loltastic since they rarely ever get up from the nest to actually help push on rush or contribute on conquest points. Usually the recon vs recon war is a completely separate subgame that I just laugh at since both sides are just playing to stroke their epeens.

I dunno, you can play recon for a few days straight to get a feel for where they will be hiding so you can just walk around as any other class with your LoS in mind at all times. but if you get popped, it's not the end of the world. Camper #215 just wasted his time popping you while you were probably being helpful playing a medic.

I can't answer about the medic guns but I know assault gets some nice guns. I can pop people from some pretty impressive distances with the m16.
The best people in this game aren't running and gunning, they're creeping (quickly) along from cover to cover trying to find advantageous positioning to hit the blindside of a victim while being in the sweetspot rangewise. It's very much a skillful asset to be sneaky and try to find an entrance that doesn't have cover.

I always feel like I'm walking in to a game of russian roulette every time I go in to that building type that has the staircase in the middle and skylights. I wish this game had flashbangs, haha.