Yeah the no peeking is bad, it costs extra TU for stepping out-shooting-stepping in, and you have to step out in order to get a good sight.
Also, it's kinda annoying that shooting enemies around corner is often a one shot thing, if you can't wack the alien in one shot and have to crawl back to cover, next turn the alien will happily walk around the corner and kill the operator in zero range, while the soldier has no TU to react to this as the TU are wasted for just stepping out and stepping in.