Coming back after 5 yrs – an impression

So I've been away for 5 yrs and decided to waste some time over Christmas break. I thought it might be interesting for some of you.

I stopped playing around introduction of Czech branch. I've been an ok player with ~52% winrate, no clans, basically solo random only.

1. Maps surprisingly didn't change much, but what changed is usually for worse. Studzianky I blacklisted almost immediately. Made Erlenberg worse: 3 disjointed zones, neither is pleasant to play from any spawn, was a good map before. I see a lot of bush creep, layers of 2-3-4x bushes making spotting unnecessarily hard, like on Pilsen. Ghost town is fine, I guess.
2. New tanks. Way too much powercreep. They insist on introducing every booger napkin in soviet buro as a tank. Wheels are cancer. "Nations" consisting of 1 branch of science fiction tanks is stupid.
3. Gameplay didn't change like at all. I expected something over 5 yrs, but no. I know there are some new mechanics with new vehicles, but I'm speaking in general: go there, take that bush, peek and fire. Not necessarily bad, but stagnation is evident.
4. Cancer points – gold spam and arty. Arty has been made worse somehow, wow. Gold usage is much more rampant. I remember playing comfortably in Jumbo Sherman, taking same level heavies face to face. Now no one even tries, just gold spam, even higher tier tanks. Regretted not going Easy Eight route. I know that gold is getting redone this year (if), so maybe that will help
5. Client and UI. Feel much better and better optimized (SD). I don't use mods though. 5 yrs ago I did, but now I don't see the point. All info I want is on display and configurable.
6. Goodies. Rewards, missions and blueprints are cool. Grind doesn't feel so painful now. I was surprised seeing Stug IV mission series still in game, and they're still enjoyable. Holiday missions were fun, I was able to get a decent commander for almost every vehicle I have.
7. Fond memories. My favorite vehicles (the ones I had the chance to get) are still good for the most part. Particularly VK 30.01 D.

So I have couple of questions.

1. How does T26E4 fare nowadays with new arty and gold spam? I loved it back in the day.
2. In general, which T8 you would recommend for credit farming? Back there I used aforementioned SuperPersh and IS-6, but am curious about T26E5.
3. Are there really underrated machines in your opinion? Back in the day I played M46 like a beast, it was (and still is) a rare sight in randoms, and was buffed several times into absurdly great tank. I'm sorta 'counter-meta' guy if that helps.

Thx for reading the rant