Replacing spawn weapons

1 -- I LIKE spawning with two weapons ... xonotic is the only game I know that gives you 2 spawn weapons (three attacks right off from spawn (sgn laser mele)) idk if mele was going to be kept for the merge

I'm assuming you mean spawning with 2 projectile weapons? Because there are plenty of games that give 2 weapons at spawn. And sadly, the laser secondary is useless to those that use weapon specific keybinds effectively, and a crutch for anyone else.

2 -- having laser separate forces a delay between laser jumping and shooting ... laser jumping leaves you vulnerable

This delay you speak of does not exist. Everyone knows that it's faster to switch to a different weapon than to refire.

3 -- I like the shotgun model ... its so ... ... iconic?

I'd say it's overused. The shotgun has been in so many FPS since DOOM. You can say it's iconic because of that, but to add something just because other games used it does not make sense. Personally, I think the current model looks odd, and at 115 FOV it sticks out too far, and both fire modes are generic and unimaginative.