it's really hard to figure out which weapon is best just from looking at a page of attributes. consider the classic ak vs m4 dichotomy. ak kills in one headshot with or without armor, has higher damage per shot, and has higher DPS. the m4 has a much tighter recoil pattern though. in practice, most people will drop an m4 to pick up an ak, but they are closer than they look on paper.
Interesting! Has the difference in damage always been the case? Back in the <= 1.6 days I always thought the AK and M4 were pretty much equivalent. I would always pick up the one I couldn't buy as I thought it was cool.
But then I only played against bots and at LAN parties so it was never too serious.
