What's the deal with Mk XI and XII hand weapon looks?

Most lower level weapons beat them hands down in style.

Take for just two examples disruptor and plasma pistols:

The Mk VIII compression disruptor pistol is a sleak, mean looking handgun. The 'uber' versions, the Mk XI and XII, have these funky 'blades' that stick out of the bottom of the barrel which are more of a hazard to the owner than any enemy.

The plasma pistol at lower levels is also pretty sleak looking, but the 'top gear' versions have these ugly 'barrel extensions' and huge grip guard strap that make them almost as big as a rifle sitting on your hip.

It seemed like a rule of thumb that the even numbered Marks of ground weapons generally were better looking than their odd numbered (lower performance) counterparts, so is there any hope in the future that Mk XIIs will see the same treatment?

I mean really, my Lt. General is tired of getting stabbed in the leg everytime a pistol is holstered!

I believe the Elite Fleet personal weapons are planned to have unique appearances, like the set weapons. That said, your problem seems to be a more general art style issue, so there's a chance you might not like those either. For the record I'm OK with most of the weapons except plasma and polaron. The plasma is too long, the polaron is too fat.

That said, I'd like it if Cryptic took an idea from a recent MMO, The Secret World. In that game vendors sell special crafting kits that allow you to destroy a weapon you own to make another weapon look like the previous one. You can even make "generic" crafted weapons look like unique weapons from a set, so long as you have both, which is great if you're going for a certain look and don't want to sacrifice stats, or just hate that your shiny new sword looks like a cricket bat with teeth in it.

Almost all weapons "better" than the standard-issue are fugly. I have a phaser standard-issue on my toons all the time to holster them.

Because, kids, better weapon means MORE SHININESS!

I had hoped that. I got myself the fleet assault phaser minigun. It looks like the XI one it replaced. It even has the same annoing holographic mumbojumbo all high end phasers share. Considering the complaints against that holostuff on them I hoped that cryptic will use at lease a low level version skin for that if not a unique one.

But noooo, someone there probably fell in love with that

I want a Mk XII phaser rifle that looks like a Mk I phaser rifle. That's all. No glowy bits, not massively oversized, canon appearance.

Apparently that is too much to ask.

TOS Type 2 phaser (available in TOS bundle) Scales
its effective
Canon
Stylish and does not Glow in the dark

You can get as many as you want once you buy the pack

I agree, the higher tier weapons look more like super-soakers or comically oversized nerf guns. The M.A.C.O. rifle doesn't look too bad, but the bloody thing is almost as big as my poor captain! Sometimes I feel sorry for her having to lug a that meter long cannon into battle. Not to mention how silly she looks sometimes.

I agree with this gripe. A lot of the ground weapons in the game are really huge/ugly. Perhaps several different models of the same weapon could be created and we could just shop for the one we think looks the coolest.

If anything i think that they should be given a limited tailor option. Sure it's an mmo and people want to be able to size you up by just looking at you, but more so it's Trek, which is why aesthetics should take priority. give them tailor options like a scale bar to match it to your captains size so they're not carrying a canon (unless they want to) And let them choose between all the mark visuals of that item up until the rank equipped. That way it works for every one as well as adds a great mechanic for tailoring kits as well.

It's not like we're asking for anything like brink or ghost recon. Although being able to pick parts to add/change functions would be awesome i think most people would just prefer to roll back the look and not the power of each weapon.

I've advocate Full Auto and other variants for the MACO rifle due to my distate with the Mk X+ phaser rifles' look, but that never seemed to come to fruition.

For a while I used tetryon weapons (they're relatively streamlines even on lower levels, and while they're "alien" and "exotic" they still don't look out of place on a Starfleet officer), but wasn't too fond of their sound nor their beam/bolt color. So I decided to switch back to phasers. The ugly blue glowy stuff (or rather, the ugly blue glow stuff at the front - the stuff on the scope is OK) is still there but ... I think I can live with it.

Still, I would prefer a better-looking phaser rifle for my away team, and so the prospect of gaining some fleet weapons is alluring ... but what do they look like? The little "preview pics" at the store are simply the generic weapon pics, AFAIK nobody has yet to provide screenshots of the weapons in action. Are these in fact the fleet weapon phasers? I found the display at my Fed fleet station, and since phasers are Starfleet's primary energy weapon of choice...

The weapons do look good, but there is one major flaw ... they lack trigger guards!

Yes, I know, there's a ton of handheld phasers and other weapons in canon Trek that don't have trigger guards, but that is no excuse. (Think of all the times you've accidentally hit a button on your cell phone. Now imagine that you cell phone could disintegrate you. You see the problem.)