If cloaking was designed to make the game better, what would it look like?
What makes a better game? Generally something that gives players what they want (excitement, enjoyment) and rewards skill.
Players want a chance to be able to avoid death through skill, and cloaks deny them most of that chance.
One problem is that cloaking is the main counter to gatecamps. So gatecamps would have to be nerfed – and no game-design person would have a problem with that.
An obvious nerf to gatecamping would be guaranteed invisibility within 7.5km. So you could align and warp off at will. This wouldn’t stop bubbles being placed in line with the gates though.
Back to cloaks. We don’t want to eliminate cloaks from the game and they should nearly always provide some advantage. A simple nerf would be a much increased decloak range eg 10km.
I personally think CovOps cloaks are an abomination of game design and should be removed from the game.
Now these changes are going to limit PvP and there isn’t nearly enough decent PvP in Eve for those who want it. And because the latter is a separate problem, it can be solved separately.