This hasn't changed at all. It was actually a common way of avoiding tank swaps back in the day. It just got a little less common now, because SE took a hiatus from Tank swaps in the recent Trials + Raids. It's nice that they brought them back, but that doesn't mean that we get to use cover any more than we were before.

The problem has never been Cover's utility. The problem is how little we actually get to use it. We don't neglect using it because the mechs don't allow for it. We neglect using it because Pld's are almost exclusively pigeon holed into the MT position (even when they really shouldn't be). Out of all of my runs in Midas so far, I have only been OT once. Almost every run, I'm being placed in the MT position by default. That actually includes my first ever run, in which I had no idea what I was even doing:

-"Pld in the party? Great. He can MT."
-"But I'm new here."
-"No problem, just watch out for x,y, and z. Ready check? Go go go."

Cover gets no use in that spot, so it might as well not be on my hotbar.