I wonder why most players put so many efforts to take Leningrad. IMO it´s a waste of time and it´s messing up the axis timeschedule which is ..
-1941 border cities,southern mines,city east of the mines, moskov
-1942 Rostov, Stalingrad
-1943 Sverdlovsk
If weather is bad and things running nasty you will need one year more.
Leningrad does not have the importance like in SC 1 where it is important as ressource center due linked Finland, to penentrate deeper into russia. Also the 10 MPP in comparison to 20 MPP´s doesnt justify any efforts to capture it. If you cut it off this should be enough but this depends if the russian player is going for finland.
I dont have the patch yet but i dont think that it would change the overall strategy. Just my 2 cents.