That's what we used to have, pretty much... the old tier 8 arties, are the current tier 10 arties, if I'm not mistaken?
Anyways, if the current changes go through, then arties will have a much harder time.
Since for one, they're completely changing them.
And another thing: They can no longer go into platoons. At all?.. At least that's how I understood it. RIP playing with friends.
Yup ive been reading loads on the official forums and it seems its always the so called unicrumbs who sit at the back farming and not working as a team as it might hurt their stats. Met quite a few people like that in game all with good stats.
In fact, I can link you to a post where some guy claims that arty actually gets more and more annoying the better you get at the game because apparantly, it prevents yo from using your skill...
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/621015-update-918-public-test-spg-changes/page__st__460__pid__14110923#entry14110923