Your scenario for the most valuable use case of the recon class is for snipers to sit back and only counter-snipe each other? That is literally promoting solo play outside of objectives. You have no concept of a sniper engaging other classes that are on objective?
Like I already mentioned, if you or the devs are not creative enough to actually balance the class just cap the number of active recon users because I agree sniper lobbies are no fun, but handicapping the class is not the solution (hell just remove the class altogether if you can't balance it for its intended role)