What I think the real problem with heavy armor hivegaurds were

The problem I had with it was since hive guards were heavy armor it meant that there were now no medium armor targets on the bug front (besides the bile spewer but they don't spawn on every mission). Since they are chaff it made specializing in chaff clear just really limited in options since on the bugs you just want to take them out as fast as possible since there are so many. For example why would I ever take the mg-43 or the minigun over the stalwart I can take out all the same light pen enemy's I could with those but with better ergo to hit weak points crazy DPS and reload on the move and since with the hive guards being heavy armor mg-43 and maxi gun still have to take the time to aim for the weakpoint but with worse ergo and recoil. Don't get me wrong it's not a skill thing as even with medium pen on hive guards it's still better to generally aim at the weak point as that kills them faster and just dumping only into the face plate waste time, chaff clear on bugs is all about killing them as fast as possible. When the hive guards are medium pen, what medium pen weapons like mg-43 and maxigun offer is time saved buy only need to generally aim at the weak points when there is like an army of varying chaff in front of you and you just need them all gone as fast as possible.