Headshots should always for any weapon guarantee unconsciousness (for helmets) & low calibres, and instant-kill for high calibres without ballistic helmets.

This is definitely a problem. It seems like if you shoot a player in the torso they take the same damage as the head.

Body armour should soak much less damage too, should be maximum 4-5 shots to knock out or kill with them.

Now I don't know if body armor especially plate carrier and other armor ballistic protection is supposed to soak this many bullets. (I'm talking about game design)
Feels very absurd and unintended in a game where design often strives for authenticity.

Guns need to feel more powerful again, they need that oomph feeling they need to have weight, and feel heavy with more inertia, slower ADS & raise gun time, and it needs more kick/recoil especially for pistols & rifles/snipers. (along with automatic rifles and SMGs)

Often times I get shot before I realize the person is raising their hands.
Raising a gun is fast and even faster after the ADS control scheme change (1.02) and again I don't know if this is intended.
It is certainly faster than it was in the legacy technology (.62) because of the performance improvements in the input control system
so I don't know if the animation time for raising hands has been changed.

Oh yeah, and MAKE BLOOD LOSS more apparent please!!! I miss the days when you were on the brink of death, your screen was all grayscale, it was tense AF! (Lose more blood when shot, please!)

I often pass hospitals and clinics while limping.
When this happens my blood is in yellow, white or full and I know that anything in the hospital can't help my limp.
By the time my limping is over my blood would be recovered fully.

You could die of blood loss with the medical system in the legacy technology (.62) now it is very rare.
No matter what your blood level is when you get hurt you get injured because of your health level.
Health in the old system wouldn't regenerate back naturally because your blood was not full.
This design choice created value to blood bags and saline bags making them essential for your health recovery.

What if the blood levels complemented the health system? (much like the legacy medical system)
What if your recovery time from injured state was determined by your blood levels
so that you would find value in saline and blood bags to your health recovery.

It currently feels like blood is a redundant stat that just is there.
It doesn't get you killed and it recovers faster than injured state in most cases.

Saline and blood bags don't really feel valuable anymore
and I drop them quite often because they just take up my space and stamina.