I agree about the flash of the scopes. However, I do think its cool that BF3 actually uses ballistics on their rifles. For example, if you're a sniper and you're making a long shot, you have to worry about bullet drop. I was playing one night and had a long shot and had to use the 2-3 mil dot to make the shot! On top of that, if you have a suppressor it affects bullet drop ever more. Kind of cool, they added some real world physics to it. Plus the destructive environment is nice. You can use a tank to blow a hole in a side of the building where a sniper is hiding.
I have no problems with the bullet drop as that is easy to compensate for and had no problem shooting people far away while they were running. It is just the tracer rounds and reflection of the scope since it is so far from reality. Some of the descriptions and affects of the weapon accessories are off and make you go !!
One of the main reasons why I love the game is the destructive environment. It is awesome to blow up buildings enough they collapse or blowing up a wall and killing the people behind it. I enjoyed that in BF Bad Company 2 as well. However, they didn't jack up the sniper stuff in that game. It is just people complaining about the snipers/recon role in the game.