Muzzle flash on minmatar weapons makes it hard to keep track of the player.

Dimmed Light blue chevrons/tanks/CRUs behind the scout make it hard to concentrate on the exact color of the cloak, making it hard to see as well.

Honestly I think the main problem is the sound. If someone stands right next to you and de-cloaks, the sound is barely audible compared to gunfire, RDVs, heck even the background game ambience. The sound on de-cloak was supposed to be a balancing factor so that if a player decloaks right behind you, you'll know about it.

Finally, it's disorienting to play a FPS where the only way to move your head is to move your entire body. Unless you're standing still, looking in the same direction, or have your sensitivity set to max in order to reduce the amount of time you spend "turning", it's almost impossible for your eyes to spot the difference between motion blur and a cloak shimmer.

And to top it off, if I do end up seeing a scout, and I do shoot at them as they're coming at me, and I do manage to fire at them for 10 seconds, they still don't die because they also have 500-600 ehp. Trying to stay on target while your muzzle flash gets in the way, or while he jumps around like crazy, or while there's a huge group of blue dots in the background, or while the person runs right past you disorienting you because of the limits of a 2D perspective FPS...makes it so that unless I'm focusing REALLY hard, I will probably end up dying by the scout 50% of the time.

Use my eyes? Get my eyes checked? Keep situational awareness? It's all excuses for the cloak creating an unfair fight and you/me/every other scout knows it. The disadvantage of the shotgun is range. The cloak eliminates that issue, and the main balancing factors for the cloak (i.e. sound and not firing from de-cloak) are currently broken, causing all of the problems that people keep complaining about.

It's a fair fight if you sneak up behind me, de-cloak, and I see a red-dot blip on the radar because of my precision for about a second before you're able to start firing on me. It's a fair fight if you de-cloak too close to me and the sound made by the cloak gives me the chance to run around and face you. It's a fair fight if you have to use dampeners and you de-cloak 10+ meters away from me in order to insta-kill me with a suit that has almost no hp at all. It's a fair fight if I watch my back all the time and am able to kill you within seconds because I spotted you.