You’re absolutely right, Arbites has further drawn attention to Vet’s shortcomings.
They should honestly explode instantly with Tinkerer. Brittleness would also be nice for anti boss reasons and Ogryn groupies but the lack of instant detonation means many Kraks are often wasted unless teammates are really paying attention and deliberately avoiding targets that have a Krak already.
Good idea, this has also been mentioned several times and it’s always good to see more people pushing for a buff to Smoke nades. Another idea is to give allies who pass through it camo briefly. Throw it down, use it to reposition ninja style.
Aside from the ideas you’ve mentioned, Weapon Specialist timer needs to start on weapon attack instead of weapon swap.
Survivalist needs to be Vet’s intrinsic class ability, applicable only to Vet. Replace Survivalist Aura with something different, preferably an Aura that encourages Veterans to engage in melee more often.
Executioner’s Stance needs some serious tweaks to make it more usable and VoC needs a nerf, discussed here: