But there used to be much more classes and it was difficult choosing which one you wanted since there were more classes to select, now they have been put together.
Put together in ways that made sense.
Assault and Medic were the same class except while assault got heavy body armor, a grenade launcher, and smokes, the medic got frags, a medkit, and a defib unit. Thanks to 2142's unlock system, merging them was easy, since players could change their loadout based on whether they wanted to play a supportive or purely offensive assault.
Engineer and Anti-Tank merging was a logical conclusion. Instead of having two overspecialized classes, you could combine them into a general vehicle support unit, capable of repairing allied vehicles with the repair tool, and destroying the enemy's with mines and rockets (and an anti-tank rifle).
Back in BF2, Spec Ops had C4, a carbine, and a silenced pistol. In 2142 they got merged with the sniper, and the C4 and Carbine were put on the "spec ops" path of the unlock tree, in addition to the "sniper" path which included a heavy sniper rifle, claymores, and a scope stabilizer. It combined them into a general long range/stealth unit.
Besides, if there were still seven classes it would just confuse the console kiddies.
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