Man, your stating flaws that don't exist based on assumptions that aren't grounded in the canon. Don't you normally get annoyed when other people do this?
2046 wrote: 1. Modern police pistol training emphasizes training for maximum adrenaline and fight-or-flight reactions, including the potential for tunnel vision, the loss of fine motor control, and general lack of reasoning faculties (e.g. the North Hollywood shootout officers picking up spent brass because that is what they did in training).
So for pistols, they train to rack the slide with the whole palm rather than pinch the back grip area, under the thinking that the loss of fine motor control will result in 'monkey-hands'.
Tapping little buttons seems less useful in that frame of reference than messing with the big fat switch on the carbine.
From what we commonly see, the Federation/Starfleet trains its personnel to pick a setting before entering combat, and then stick with it unless things change drastically. They don't normally fiddle with the settings during a fight.
You are familiar with the episode Too Short a Season aren't you?
2046 wrote: 2. Modern American military design doctrine emphasizes technology over simplicity and numbers, just as the Nazis did. This misses the fact that our best weapons have been simple and robust, like the Garand, the Sherman, and the A-10, even if they were a little more complicated in some cases.
So, we end up with mistakes like the F-35 being favored over the A-10.
The phaser is a great multi-purpose Swiss Army Knife, a good weapon for explorers who might have to heat up their coffee, do surgery, and vaporize a wall with the same tool. But if a blaster could out-do it in the context of modern military acceptance tests (sand, water, extreme temps) plus additional torture tests we can dream up (drop, crush, radiation, technobabble fields), I would go blaster every time on the battlefield.
1) Except that a Type-1 and Type-2 phaser are multi-tools first and foremost.
2) We never see the problems you assume with a Starfleet standard issue Type-3 phaser. The closest you get is a vague line by Major Kirs in Return to Grace, but the quote in question is just too vague, and sounds like M-16 VS AK-47 stuff.
3) I have no doubt in my mind that Starfleet could build a perfectly working Star Trek version of a K-11 that worked flawlessly, and had none of the drawbacks.
4) Sadly the A-10 need to be replaced do to the airframe getting worn out.
5) The Garand had some rather glaring flaws.
