Wasted damage is something that is true for any weapon type when you're killing with 1-hit. I'll take wasted damage over wasted time and/or wasted ammo any day of the week. The sooner the creature is dead the less damage it is potentially doing to me. Steel thunder is a bullet hose which is fun to plink with but not really that useful in a real fight. Elemental damage is pretty much a requirement most places. It is good for spiderants. 11 rounds(7+4 from skills) allows you to kill 5 big spiderants before reloading with 1 round left over. Tap to the head, tap the abdomen when they turn, rinse and repeat. Smaller ones you can shoot anywhere with a volcano and they die in 1 hit.
You can run around brainlessly spamming any weapon, it is hardly what I'd consider a benefit unique to pistols---not that I'd really consider it a benefit to any weapon. That rocket launcher is a lot of fun for brainlessness, the rocket detonates about every 5-10 feet along its flight path, boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. Hard to see when you're shooting it yourself because the fireballs are in a line but looks pretty damned cool from the side. You can also shoot straight up into the sky and then sprint to the side a bit to see the string of explosions. About the only place I can wade into a pack of mobs and go brainless without dying is on Eridian Promontory and those things die with 1 body hit from sniper or shotgun. Try wading into the crimson legion and they'll be scraping you off the floor with a spatula.
Each of the smoke clouds in this picture was an AoE incendiary explosion. Shame there aren't that many places in the game where you can have fun with this.
I can switch weapons by touching a key, if I'm really that worried about how fast I can sprint I just switch to a faster sprinting weapon. I run plenty fast when switched to that shotgun and if anything does catch me it gets the burning smiley face of death ballistically tattooed to its hide.
