This has been done to death and as such i can understand people poking fun. On the other hand, every question merits some valid input.
So, i'll keep it short in the interest of giving a valid answer without going over it in length for the umpteenth time.
From personal experience with 20mm AA cannons i can say there's just one slight departure from reality with CoD tracers. They are a bit too fat when they are close to the player's viewpoint.
As for what they do right, they appear short, almost like dots, when viewed from afar or behind and they appear as streaks when viewed from close up and sideways (eg, the rounds coming from wing guns are "streakier" than the rounds coming from cowl/nose mounted guns), which adequately simulates the optical illusion that occurs in real life.
I think there was some developer input on this where they acknowledged the "fat" issue and said it has something to do with limitations in the way they scale over distance. Maybe it's easier to have the current size varying over distance, that is, maybe making them thinner when viewed from close up would "break" how they long at long range, necessitating swapping of the graphics models at different ranges and so on, who knows?
They probably kept them this way for now because it's more useful from a gameplay perspective to be able to see them at medium/long range as they approach the target, rather than having them at the correct "width" when viewed close up only to be hard to see at the ranges they are supposed to be useful.
I guess it's one of the myriad of things that will improve over time, but i find them realistic enough and perfectly functional for the time being. Your mileage may vary of course. An easier option could be adding some transparency,especially around the edges. This is visible on biltongrbu's promotional videos and it makes them look much closer to reality.
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