Anybody can go through mines if they go slowly enough. What changed in 1.4 was reversing over mines. It used to be that a tank in reverse even flat out (which is slow but not too slow) could safely go over mines. The balance came from the fact that you were presenting your weakest armour forwards.
Now you have to go at the same slow speed regardless of which way you are facing. The old version was a bit like the pit lane speed limiter bizzo in Formula One - as long as you were in reverse you didn't have to worry about controling the speed. (Not that F1 cars reverse out of the pits, you know what I mean).
So yeah, you can still drive over mines, you just have to be careful. I used to enjoy doing the old bootlegger's reverse through minefields but I guess I'll have to practice my slow driving instead.
