Is CM dying?

[Steiner14]

There are scenarios with VLs that don't make sense tactically. But that's nothing CMx2 can be blamed for. For example most meeting engagements IMO are tactically extremely unrealistic (and they were the reason, why I stopped ladder playing, because personally I am most interested in realism, not action). And with the artificial time presure CMx1 was mostly a frontal rush and slaughter with a few tactical elements.

If there are a few houses and no cover, then ask yourself: would you place yourself in the houses, if these are the five targets that will be turned into rubble? I guess in reality this would be the last place where I would defend anything.

If tactically important locations are very exposed (think of a crossroad or a railway station), then they need to be controlled indirectly by controlling the important areas around them and not by sitting on it. That's the reason why a hilltop can be important and why it would make sense to have it as VL. But a few undefendable houses in the flat open terrain without fortifications? That's bad scenario design (from a tactical point of view).

Therefore I do not to focus on VLs that much. I only use them to get a rough guidance of the direction, but I ask myself: where must I go, to destroy the enemy with the least own losses?

If I understand the case you describe and I were a defender, I'd simply not defend this VL from within. Defending VLs can also mean to control them from further away.