Never really understood this opinion, because everyone who says it ignores the obvious flip side to that statement: it's also far easier to be killed.
By that logic, the game isn't easier, the game play is just different. It might be easier to kill an opponent with only 1 or 2 good hits, but it's much harder to do so while not exposing yourself to the same danger. I actually find hardcore modes harder to play in terms of maintaining a KDR, and much more challenging - I quickly got bored of BF3 before I started seeking out HC servers.
Also, it might be easier to kill people, but you still have to hit them in the first place. There seems to be an assumption among the competitive community that hardcore mode involves just spraying randomly at the enemy and getting rewarded with a kill; I can only assume that people who say such things haven't played hardcore mode much, because I find the experience very different. I know that it will only take a few rounds to down an enemy so I tend to be much more conservative with my shooting, using controlled bursts or single shots.
To each his own of course, as you said. I guess it comes down to what you value as skill. Competitive players seem to focus on the kill itself and it seems that most of these players cant help but scoff at "hardcore" modes as 'easy' without weighing up both sides of the argument, just because it might take a few less bullets to kill someone.
