Clan pulse lasers are cool. They're one of the best weapons in the game because they mix accuracy with good range and power.
Inner Sphere pulse lasers still have good power and the accuracy boost, but get the range cut in half.
Except, do they really have the accuracy?
Lower range just means they're hitting with a range bracket worse than they otherwise would. A Large Laser and Large Pulse Laser shooting the same target at 14 hexes would see them both having +4 to hit, the Large Laser for Long Range, and the Large Pulse Laser for Extreme Range minus two. The Large Laser will deal double the damage of the Large Pulse because the Pulse is at extreme range and only hits for 4 damage. Medium lasers are in a similar situation at 8 hexes.
But, of course, pulse lasers are for closer ranges you say. Except while that fixes the damage problem, the regular lasers are STILL a range band better. So the Large and Medium laser medium range of 10 and 6 hexes are getting the same modifiers of the pulse laser long ranges of 10 and 6 hexes. Heck, if you're using the energy weapon variable damage rule, the pulses lose even their +1 damage at long range, being knocked down to the same damage as regular lasers.
So that only leaves only point blank range as a spot where IS Pulse Lasers actually have an advantage. Well, at least below 4 and 5 hexes for the Large and 3 hexes for the Medium, since those STILL overlap with the standard versions.
Only at a tiny 3 and 2 hex range do the Large and Medium Pulse lasers actually have an accuracy advantage over their standard counterparts, which is pretty dire considering their massively higher weight and heat cost.
Then you remember that Variable Speed Pulse Lasers and Snub-Nose PPCs exist and wonder why you would ever use an IS Pulse Laser at all under any circumstances, since both of those perform dramatically better at the exact same range bands IS Pulse Lasers are supposed to.
Am I missing something here or am I beating a dead horse like the AC5 argument?