"Should I try out this gun?" "No! Only use blasters! ... until you get a Silversix!"
"Should I try out this sword?" "No! Calibur is way better! ... ... until you get an Avenger!"
"How about bombs, is the-" "ONLY USE NITRONOME EVER. Better yet, forget the bombs, only use Calibur and Avenger and get a Silversix but only use it to shoot triggers and to fight one specific enemy in the entire game!"
:I ... ... This is how these conversations go. Every time. And this is why, playing since release, I still have yet to SEE most of the weapons in the game. Everyone is using the same stuff. Everyone is afraid to try any weapon that doesn't come from the spiral quartermaster or purchased with fifty boss tokens.
What I really don't get is how it can be accepted with such certainty that the majority of gear in the entire game is really that inferior to STANDARD ISSUE when so few people have ever SEEN these weapons, let alone used them themselves. Come on, people. You're all going to take weapon-choice advice from folks who swear by the -simplest-, -most easy to use- equipment the game has to offer? Maybe the people telling us to only use the simple weapons just couldn't figure out how to use the less straightforward stuff properly.
I mean... everyone says Graviton Bombs are terrible, and I once cleared an entire T2 danger room solo with no pickups and a single bar of health, using mine. *dons shades of awesomeness* B)
Of course, if the standard issue gear really IS that superior to MUCH HARDER TO ACQUIRE weaponry, then it would be inevitable that it will all eventually be nerfed for balance. I mean, if I'm sickened by the lack of weapon-choice diversity, I can only imagine how frustrated the game's developers are that all of their work designing, coding, and art-ing the other 90% of the game's gear went completely to waste, right? The reckon-nerf-ening will be upon yee! UPON YEEEEEEEE!! I can hear gremlins sabotaging the supply rooms AS WE SPEAK! Mwahahhahahahaaa.
Perhaps it's not that non-standard, non-token gear isn't good, it's just that it's not worth it. You say yourself - "much harder to acquire", as opposed to "most easy to use".
Wouldn't it make sense that when offering general advice for a large audience, the safest generality would pretty much be "get the easy to get thing that's also very easy to use"?