You mean the exact version of SV we had during MoP or do you mean the general playstyle of SV as a whole, as it was designed prior to Legion?(when it became melee)
Ofc, opinions vary on this as well.
Personally I did not play WoW a lot during MoP. A big part of this was because of the changes made to the talent-system. Where they stepped away from talents being focused on each perspective specialization that we had, and gave us the modern design with fewer choices.
Now, the modern design in itself with fewer choices, I’m not necessarily against. It was more so, the specific talent choices we got in MoP. WoD talents were slightly better IMO, but not by much.
I found them overall to be fairly bland, and non-focused on SV and it’s playstyle/fantasy.
Having said this, as far as re-creating any version of the old SV spec, and making it fit into modern WoW and it’s systems + design philosophies. While I preferred Cataclysm as far as Survival goes, over MoP or WoD. We can’t just simply bring back either version of them.
Things would have to be altered to fit todays WoW.
What I did, was to simply look at each expansion where we had any playable version of the old ranged SV spec and then, think of which elements that I liked the most. And then try to bring them together for the new design.
But to also bring in certain elements from other hunter specs. Elements that could either be helpful for gameplay or elements that somehow enhanced the design.
This is ofc subjective. And opinions always vary.
Anyways, the result will ofc look different from any past version of the spec that we had as they looked A LOT different from how specs are today in general.
I hope that people can find that the core of it is still there.
Note: I know that the link here makes it look like a giant wall of text. It’s not. Apparently, links to other posts makes those look horrible…
You are idd right on this. Or I should say that you are, sort of…
I should say that I had to look this up as I could not remember the specifics of it. Also, I could not find any official records of the old “Outdoorsman”-spec, which was what SV was called before 1.7.
Nor could I find anything similar to a talent calculator that actually showed the exact layout of the talents.
I did find this though(correct me if anything here wasn’t actually there prior to patch 1.7). And if anyone has a link to a website where you can find the old Outdoorsman-talents, I would very much like to see it again. Thanks! 
Here it is(all talents have max points in them):
Outdoorsman (Old Survival spec)
Entrapment
Rank 5/5
Gives your Immolation Trap, Frost Trap, and Explosive Trap a 25% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 5 sec.Savage Strikes
Rank 5/5
Increases your critical strike chance with melee weapons by 5%.Precision
Rank 5/5
Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 5%.Improved Raptor Strike
Rank 5/5
Reduces the cooldown of your Raptor Strike by 1 sec.Improved Wing Clip
Rank 5/5
Gives your Wing Clip ability a 20% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.Lightning Reflexes
Rank 3/3
Increases your Dodge chance by 3%.Melee Specialization
Rank 5/5
Increases the damage you deal with melee weapons by 5%.Improved Freezing Trap
Rank 3/3
Increases the duration of your Freezing Trap by 6 sec.Improved Explosive Trap
Rank 2/2
Increases the initial damage done by your Explosive Trap by 60%.Improved Frost Trap
Rank 2/2
Increases the duration of your Frost Trap’s movement slowing effect by 3 sec.Improved Immolation Trap
Rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your Immolation Trap by 15%.Deflection
Rank 5/5
Increases your Parry chance by 5%.Improved Mongoose Bite
Rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your Mongoose Bite ability by 20%.Deterrence
Rank 1/1
Instant 5 min cooldown
When activated, increases your Dodge and Parry chance by 25% for 10 sec.Counterattack
Rank 1/1
45 Mana
Instant cast 5 sec cooldown
5 yd range
A strike that becomes active after parrying an opponent’s attack. This attack deals 40 damage and immobilizes the target for 5 sec. Counterattack cannot be blocked, dodged, or parried.Lacerate
Rank 1/1
65 Mana
Instant cast
5 yd range
Requires Melee Weapon
Wounds the target causing them to bleed for 77 damage over 21 sec.
Now, if you look only at these talents, then I can very much see why people claim that the old SV(Outdoorsman) spec was a melee spec.
But the thing is, you still had many ranged abilities/attacks baseline. Neither of which were removed if you specced into the above talents. What does this mean?
Spec’ing into the old SV talents allowed you to be more powerful when you had to fight an enemy(player or npc) that was in melee range of you.
As, in melee range, you could not use your ranged weapon against them.
Conclusion: the old spec did make your melee capabilities better, as well as your traps and your overall survivability. But did picking these talents make you an actual melee hunter? I would say no.
Back then, we had no such thing as being only a ranged hunter or being only a melee hunter.