People should stop talking like choppers are now useless. I've seen decent flyers that still did a lot of damage to the opossing force. I think people are just complaining because they cannot simply man a helicopter and fly carelessly around without ever fearing any threat anymore.
If you use the surroundings to your advantage and don't get over eager with your maneuvers, you can still do a decent job.
I am a tank driver myself and I am used to the fact that I am the Nr. 1 target of all Javliners, C4'ers, suicide repair tool attackers, Helicopters, Jets, LAVers as soon as I pop up. If I would play as careless as many helicopter friends seem to, I would never achieve anything. So the recent update just evens out the odds, man up heli friends, man up!