I agree with most parts, but to add to this, I don't think that cycling hardeners is a big issue. First of all, doing so in a Gunnlogi requires 3 hardeners, only one of which will be used out of the three, so a Gunnlogi who uses all of their modules instead of "cycling about 1 out of 3 high slots" will utterly destroy the cycling tank, so for Gunnlogies I don't recall this an issue.

Armor tankers only need 2 hardeners to cycle, but then again a guy who activates all hardeners has better survivability against another tank.

To be honest cycling is just a very risky move, you are vulnerable to tank to tank 1 v 1s as he likely used both his armor hardeners while you are using 1 out of 3/2

Also cycling adds to tactics of the gameplay, cycling is used when you need constant toughness, while 2 hardeners all tanked up is used for a more "I really need to take hits right now, there's two tanks over there". It makes one require a knowledge of the surroundings, and decide whether they need to take small hits via cycling or critical hits through dual hardening.

Hey there - thanks for reading the long post and replying. I think your suggestion is a valid one, and if I remember correctly, CCP wolfman stated that is something he wanted to get onto the cards - getting WP as a reward for damaging a vehicle, even if you don't outright kill it will surely force more people to run AV fits, as long as it's implemented to avoid WP-farming.

I think it won't address the entire problem though - with more people running AV fits there is the chance that two or more AV users are in the vicinity of a HAV which is usually enough to neutralise it, if not outright destroy it if they sync themselves correctly BUT it still won't address the zero-sum game. If it still takes more than one infantry AV to destroy a HAV, a tank will do a much better job, and lets not forget the tank is completely viable against infantry, which is not the case for an AV infantry user.