Playing once as a small-gunner who walks around with a crappy hunter's rifle, with a twine-wrapped stock, perks for critical hits, and endless shots to the face, replacing it with a Gauss rifle at the end – everyone played like that. But to claim that this is better and more effective than even a basic Avenger, you can only do so if you haven't played with heavy weapons. If you haven't played with heavy weapons, you haven't lived. It's interesting, destructive, and cool. Going through every time with a 9mm pistol-shotgun-rifle? That's just being a complete bore. And I assume you haven't seen a jackhammer in action either.
Yes, I also Googled "cocaine" and wanted to post the same picture here, but then I thought it was too cliché.