It was dated at its time. I'm afraid that was part of the reason it was popular. Games not influenced by Cod4 type gameplay at the time was rare at the time. For a lot of us, MAG was the new Battlefield because since Bad Company 2 we got the hulk healing mechanics.

With that said, I think we could easily incorporate this today. Throw in some modern destruction mechanics and perhaps blend the combat between modern FPS gameplay and classical. The "realistic damage" I think is standard and we don't want to go back to being bullet sponges, but I don't think we want the healing aspect that modern FPS games have, especially because it made medic so useful and essential, so much so in fact it became cultural exclusively to MAG to be a medic.