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I really like Harker, he's pretty awesome in terms of fluff and model. Is he any good on the tabletop? The impression I've gotten on vets is that their best use is as cheap minimized squads with 3x meltaguns, and Harker comes with a (relatively) hefty price-tag. Do infiltrate, stealth, move through cover, and his relentless heavy bolter justify his cost? And if so, how should the vets he accompanies be equipped? Outflanking in a chimera with Meltaguns seems like an option, but also seems to waste some of the potential brought by the heavy bolter. What's the opinion on all this?

You could fire Harkers Bolter and the three meltaguns out of the Chimera's hatch, so I guess using him in mech lists is viable. However, his abilities are more effectively used on foot - which fits the general Catachan fluff.

One way I have seen it done is infiltrating him towards a slightly forward objective and using his squad to hold position. Maximum firepower for that task, even unwieldy heavy weapons. Their stealth gives them some survivability, but, of course, he still needs fire support and shouldnt be the only infantry target on the table, otherwise he might die too easily.

My brother loves Harker's fluff so he always uses him. This probably isn't the best way to run him but the only way I've seen him deployed: 3 Snipers and a HB or Auto-Cannon infiltrating in cover. I guss with the Catachan Sniper models it has a fluffy coherent feel to it.

I would not call his price tag hefty. With all the useful stuff he provides, it's very reasonable compared to how expensive some (useless) things/characters in the codex are.

My harker squad has plasma guns - expensive but useful. I generally deploy them up the board in cover somewhere, with clear shots on important positions. They tend to work well, though sometimes they all overheat on turn 1 and die even with 3+ cover saves.

He is expensive yes. I play quite a lot in city fight environment (not rules) which has a good amount of terrain. I have used him with some success infiltrating in a tall building with 3 plasma vets in the squad. He can really benefit from his Stealth there and usually makes it a tactical challenge for the opponent to decide wether to deal with him or not.

If there isn't much terrain I would not use him.

I've seen this fielded before:

10 man vets with Harker, 3 plasmaguns, heavy weapon team with Autocannon + Primaris Psyker + elite inquisitor with psycannon. It's expensive, but with stealth and wound allocation shennagans, it's pretty durable. You can deploy them in cover somewhere and rain multi shot death. Nightshroud offers some protection to them as well. At 12" - 24" this units fire power is sick.