It seems that modern day generals are more strategists and political intermediaries than anything.

Yes and no.

Generals of the past very much involved in politics as well. One could say Alexander, Caesar, etc. were all generals who definitely got very much involved in politics. Part of it was by the very nature society worked - the nobility and the elite generally led the armies and thus were inherently connected to politics.

Generals are probably more involved in politics today due to the nature of warfare today. Since WW2, all of our wars have involved multinational coalitions (Korea, Desert Storm) or heavy involvement in local political affairs (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq) which has required generals getting involved in both winning the combat part of the war as well as the political war.

It's true that generals don't lead from the front as often as they used to in the pre-gunpowder days, but that's in part due to the nature of modern warfare. But don't assume it doesn't happen anymore either: case in point, Norman Cota who landed with the infantry on Omaha Beach on D-Day and was considered a major source of inspiration for the infantry pinned down on the beach. He definitely took fire on that beach.

As far as whether they are more strategists today... yes but that's by their very nature. Ever wonder why they're still called generals? Because by their level, they have to be generalists who understand combat on a strategic scale, rather than what they were trained to do (be it infantry, armor, airborne, aviation, etc.) when they were lieutenants and captains.

So yes, they have to be heavily involved in strategy because that's largely what their role entails. A lot of this is because armies today are many magnitudes larger than those in the pre-gunpowder days - a modern Army division is so much more complex and large than say, a Roman legion.

As you have more layers to manage all this, the guy at the top ends up higher and higher on the pyramid and has to have a higher level generalist view of what is going on because he is so disconnected/remote from what is going on at the bottom. That way, instead of being involved in tactics at the lowest level, he lets his junior officers and senior NCOs handle the tactical part.

This isn't absolute by any means and varies by unit and branch, but a simple way to look at officer structure (using US ranks) and general responsibility is:

O-1 to O-3 (2nd Lieutnant to Capital) - Tactical O-4 to O-6 (Major to Colonel) - Logistical O-7 to O-10 (Brigadier General to General) - Strategic

The well known British Military Historian John Keegan wrote a book called "The Mask of Command" which looked at the changing role of generals over the course of history.

His main observation is that the role has shifted from front line leader to rear echelon planner over time. Alexander the Great led his cavalry in the charge. Julius Caesar led his troops occasionally, when the battle was desperate. The Duke of Wellington or Grant or Lee were still near enough to the front line to be at risk from enemy fire. By the time of WWI or WWII, the generals were well behind the lines.

This was caused by the scale and scope of battles becoming larger, so that command of the whole battlefield could no longer be exercized from the front, and by the range of weapons becoming longer, so that the front was no longer a safe enough place to base the overall command.