OldSpice, BBB’s are mostly fine, except the missing hit animation. Sometimes you just cant react, because the only indicator is your health going down. It is not as broken, as it was screamed at start, I think. It is also not that widely used anymore, and in my experience, BBB is nice but positron cannons, torpedoes, nukes, you name it, can be way more efficient anyway, so even my extensive Beachballing has ended. BBB is too often a suicide run, after all, you get primaried by literally everyone. I was flying Engies the last weeks mostly, and have my highest killing medals now in that sector, even if this was the case for fighters immediately after the patch, flying highly offensive healer Fed Engies is way more deadly, than a BBB fleet, because you can zap them at 8km, and torpedo them if they get into BBB range easily.
Also, there was an answer to your second question already: it was necessary for future balancing. Antibus stated this. Of course this can be viewed with mixed feelings, since together with all the other changes, I guess, we will never know if that was really needed. But on the other hand, give the new weapons a shot. Try to fit them for longer times. Some of them are really well made, and of course it could be, that the devs introduce new weapons for the lack of the old ones, and I do hope the less incredible weapons get some kind of buff. And finally, it’s the devs who have to balance. So if they feel, they can get more out of this system, it is actually also our opportunity, to make things better, by really trying out the weapons over longer periods of time and give feedback.
Every crisis is also an opportunity.
The old weapons were also pretty nice, and I do miss my RFP, but the class specific weapons did create a bit more depth, too. Give it a shot. or a Zap.