One of the problems trying to "fix" anything in Renegade is that it's a slippery slope. You "fix" one thing; why not "fix" something else? And that thing over there everyone complains about (unless they're using it right)? And this thing, I always hated this thing....
So maybe there is a legitimate issue, balance-wise, with the n00bjet. Where does it end?
I thought about it and thought about it, and the responses throughout this thread hold a common theme; everyone complaining that n00bjets are OP are describing situations that stem from a few (or even just one) lone wolves buying them and camping out. Almost everyone saying snipers are easy to deal with are describing team tactics to bring them down. Lone wolves are much more common on public servers; and people tend to think that only a sniper can beat a sniper.
When you've got opportunistic grunts who buy up the n00bjets and harass the other team, the other team can over-react, and their own lone wolves ALL decide to go out and play silly buggers with the first set of n00bjets. Then the remaining opportunistic grunts on the first team see an empty base and rush. GG, go report. The problem isn't really the n00bjets- it's how people react to them and not to their teammates.
(I call them n00bjets, btw, because I myself am a tank driver, and hate snipers with a burning passion. Not that I get killed often by snipers; my K/D on them is quite high, but then I'm always in a tank. I see a sniper, I kill it. If it's in the tunnels, I ignore it and kill their base. GG.)
When Bungie put the Forge into Halo 3, they were worried that once the game came out, people would "fix" their maps. You know, change the placement of items, weapons, start locs, whatever. Eventually they decided maybe that's not such a bad thing. If lots of people want to complain "change this" or "change that", then I support the idea to just include mutators or make the numbers mutable through txt bins. After all, you guys have taken it upon yourselves to, as you've said, translate- not remake- C&C Renegade. If someone else thinks they can "rebalance" the game, that's all fine and well, and they can go about their business without complaining to you ever again. Instead, they can all bitch out each other because 95% of them will be the whiney engineer cowering in a building because a sniper was picking on him.