The same happened with the F-16C, it had its targeting pod nerfed to gen 1 Thermals and was the sole top tier jet with a Litening pod that had no access to gen 3 thermals for the better part of two years… it only had its gen 3 thermals restored in late 2024 if I recall.
yep, and 120C is nerfed through the ground and brings none of its IRL HOBS capability while hitting slower than 120A on shots under ~20km
and of course gaijin also decided to add it to one of the meta airframes because their poor implementation isnt much of an upgrade