I know this is an old topic, but I wanted to give my two cents.
I think one thing that hasn't been touched too much in this thread is the United Nations. It's vital to a Cold War game's success that the United Nations is implemented and handled well.
I'm personally not entirely sure what form it would take. On one hand, it could be a Civilization 5 style World Congress system where the United Nations convenes once per year, etc, or it could just appear as a notification whenever someone makes a proposal. If it was really good, it could even have random minor countries be selected to join the Security Council each rotation. This would allow them to play a roll in world politics in a much more tangible way, while majors like the USSR and USA can do the heavy lifting for diplomatic agendas.
And at the same time, this system has the potential to fix almost every problem brought up in this thread. Imagine making a proposal to the United Nations to intervene in a foreign war, such as Vietnam or Korea, or attempting to introduce a a treaty to embargo the Warsaw Pact, or since its the cold war, introduce nuclear non-proliferation treaties or banning ground silos, etc, etc. The possibilities are endless, and Paradox could go as far as they want with this. I just hope they wouldn't make any of it paid DLC. Of course, majors would be able to veto most actions, just like the real UNSC, so Papua New Guinea probably won't be getting very far with world politics.
Economy has also always been pretty lackluster in Paradox games. Money systems are cheap and ineffective, and Hearts of Iron's civilian factory system is an interesting premise, but fails to deliver a sense of economic inflation or booms. I think this hurts Hearts of Iron significantly since it attempts to tackle the Great Depression. I believe that currency value, rather than currency itself, can be of a huge value to an economic system. Think of it like this: USD > rubles. Therefore, the United States would have a much better time with industry, etc.
I think this would fit quite nicely within a cold war setting.
That being said, many of the issues that need to be addressed with Paradox's recent games are because of their DLC policy, and most of the others stem from how difficult it really is to make a great strategy game. Because it's not about creating systems that are realistic, it's about creating a game built on systems that are appropriate for the time period and setting, while being fun to play and replay.
That being said, I absolutely think that Paradox have it in them to do something great with the theme, but it'll be a much larger task than many here think. Hearts of Iron IV spanned from 1936 - 1945 and that was a huge task for the team. Now imagine doing 1949 - 2000. Perhaps even 2010 if they wanted to give us a decent amount of breathing space for alternate history, although I doubt they will. And even with that being said, if they were going to create a Cold War game, it would have to be completely different from everything they've made before, as it would have to promote a peaceful play style, and punish overly aggressive players. Because it's the cold war, and we don't call it the hot war for a reason.
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