Would Rommel have fared better or worse as a commander in the USSR than he did in Africa?
Define better or worse. I'm not sure if he was due to be promoted or what, but let's assume he keeps 7th Panzer. He'd be under a new corps commander who would more tightly control him than Guderian did in France. Looks like Rudolf Schmidt as corps commander with 3rd Panzer Army. Given that 7th Panzer in Barbarossa was still quite the Ghost Division they'd probably keep their OTL performance and maybe Rommel would get the corps when Schmidt is promoted, but who knows.
I think it is more likely than not Rommel is radicalized against Hitler if he goes East considering all that will be witnessed there in terms of atrocities and command failures.
Any positions Model could be slotted into during the Battle of France to hasten his rise? I was thinking maybe slotting him into the 3rd Panzer a bit earlier than iOTL, but its only noteworthy actions were fighting two indecisive battles in the low countries, so that's probably not the best position from which to try to make a name.
He was the CoS of an army. He was tracked on a different career path than that of a commander and instead opted for a division command. I suppose you could have him beg for a division command in France instead of an army CoS, but he was too junior and there weren't enough divisions to give. Part of the reason he even got one for Barbarossa was the doubling of Panzer divisions from 1940 to 1941 by chopping them in half. So he might well end up with an infantry division in France, but then he's just one of the faceless masses of division commanders and unlikely to rise as rapidly as with a panzer division, where the best and brightest were slotted.
Personally I don't think his command role was possible without serious PoDs in his career before the war.
