The fact that you're complaining about straffing vehicles with .50s pretty much summs up the argument lazs.
I drive tanks about 30% of the game. I would love to be able to ignore all but direct/close hits with bombs (close hits do damage vehicles)... and not even worry about a plane that should be relatively innefective against a conceled/protected vehicle.
But that's not what the vehicles have been introduced into. They are out in the open, .50s will damage panzers and people will continue to straff no matter what because they really aren't worried about much else. Thus, you need to pintle gun.
By the way... you may want to check out the view from a pintle gun on a tank. There's a pretty glaring weak spot there that's easy to exploit.
Basically, there's no denying that GVs are very gamey in AH. I wish it weren't so, but I don't see a solution given the current arena setup. Once there are things like cover, then maybe that can change. Kinda like pinpoint hi-alt bombing... until the MA changed, it wasn't practical to do away with it.
AKDejaVu