Is there a balance to the reloading in hardcore mode?

The penalty is too heavy, and is arguably the farthest mechanic from realism to implement in hardcore mode. Keep the mechanic, the people apparently wanted it and it grew on me personally within the console beta. But there needs to be a balance, something that doesn't penalize you for reloading in certain instances.

My example is, you regen health in softcore while out of combat. So why not allow topping off magazines in hardcore mode while out of combat?

When you fire or get fired upon, you lose your ammo since realistically you're not going to top off ammo at that moment. And making such a huge mechanic to put half empty magazines aside would be too much to do in such a small time frame I'm guessing. So why not just add in an out of combat feature to the reloading for hardcore mode?