The Covert Ops don’t have the Survavibility, nor the Mobility offered by the Shield Drain and the MicroWarp on the Recon.
except this sentence only partially, i can completely agree with what rakza said. I also had the same notion once, that they should be switched around maybe, but actually, it makes more sense as it is.
recon is “detecting stuff”. you dont need camo for that. only the huge sight range. fed recons have less survivability, even if we compare it to a non-camo covert ops, effectively, but are as manouverable, sometimes a lot faster, and of course they got the microwarp as mobility attribute aswell in a more tactical sense, while the more tanky empi onses still have the warp, but are of course slower.
your short cloak makes you completely invisible, to plan your escape route, its short duration is also a bonus, since you can force an enemy recon to decide if he really wants to plant his detector “there, just for you”. you have huge objective bonuses, and mines or slowing missiles can even be an asset to even the odds in a dogfight.
especially for the sharky attacks the camo is pretty useful; as escape module however not always too much, since it’s a bit easier to approach undetected, than escape. this makes the more assassin co better in using it. after all, the CO’s job is to fight and deal damage. if they are not viable against other ceptors of any kind, i would even say, the CO would be b0rk.
I do see more improvement in recons, tho;
recons have their issues in fights themselves, they do not have the same standing power as an ecm or co (well except the enemy brings a portable shield recharge station, aka guard) for browling into open attacks (and thats fine by me), while around a beacon, or in terrain you can dodge behind obstacles, they can do hit&run, but otherwise, the recon is a bit impaired at team battle game mode, and there gets a bit of an observer role; however, actually, few ceptors are nowadays, except the top ecms, because if i think back a year (aka long long time ago) you had to search tacklers with magnifying glasses, this year you just hope, someone at least takes the engi, instead of yet-another-tackler.
also, the recon cannot really spot targets far away which have some sort of camo, like LRFs do, and only a few empi recons are good in hunting down LRFs. I would rather love the recon getting something in that particular area;
hunting lone snipers, taking out beacon drones, etc. were a bit easier once aswell, so there are many things the recon could be improved with.
but I think the camo can stay where it is 
