It seems that attack speed bonuses on Alchemers are kind of useless in their current state. As seen here you can definitely attack faster, but with only 2 shots you're still hampered by the "reload," which does not benefit from the speed boost. It's still faster to shoot in timed sequence to avoid having to reload, the time between shots to do this appears to be unchanged by the speed boost, too.
It would be nice too see the speed boost apply to all aspects of using the weapon.
Also, wow, what a difference in speed only a quarter bar makes in the power meter.
(Yes that is a Magma Driver vs. a Firotech, they have the same attack speed though the whole line.)
Agreed, I found the lack of reload speed upgrading quite disappointing.