As it is, energy weapons actually provide quite a bit of different playstyles, and all of them are quite deadly. Long range knockouts/cripples? Hell yeah, some 35~ ap aimed shots coming right up with a laser rifle. Fan of spam, eh? Plasma pistol's got you covered with 11 ap double tap spam spam spam. Literally never run out of AP if you've invested in agility. Spice that up a bit by aiming, deadly cripple machine. Rad rifle, pow, supremely high damage piercing shots that will eat through your armor in an instance!
There's many more, though those are just the weapons I've had the most experience with. You've probably caught my drift by now. Energy weapons are a vast spectrum of varying ways of play and there are many ways to utilize them. I just want a little bit of "OOMPH" added to those SMGs and I'll be happy. More weapons wouldn't be bad, though if you think energy weapons lack versatility than you may just be doing it wrong.
Dunno why people think they're weak, hell, I've gone toe to toe alone against a couple of lawyer pvp junkies with a plasma pistol and I had them on the defensive. Like I mentioned earlier, it's just the SMGs that need a little boost and things will be perfect.