(It is simply meant to be a place where people can talk about the League units they like, without getting slammed by people who only stick to more optimized things.)
I'm going to point out a few things about this line of thought, and some related topics.
1 - There are multiple flavors of 'optimal.' Back in 3055, there were only one or two forms; 16 double heatsinks with twin ERPPCs and a bunch of medium or ER Medium lasers. Massed Gauss. LBX AC spam as a third form perhaps. Now that variant armor and many new weapons exist, 'optimal' is no longer a clear-cut thing. Instead, you're starting to see varying matchups where Mech X has advantage over Mech Y but loses to Mech Z... kind of like a fighting game, in a way.
The idea that the Jackal is a bad Mech is absurd. Well, the original -1532 model was, but every other config since then has had some use.
2 - It's not a bad thing to want decent designs. There's a difference between being upset we're not getting "clearly the favored faction of the writers" designs like FedCom did back in 3055, and being upset we're getting obvious junk. Thankfully, 'obvious junk' is largely a thing of the past. We're getting decent, playable machines now and dwelling on the few remaining junkers isn't something I intend to do. I'd rather focus on the wide variety of good machines we now have. Few match the traditional 'form of optimal' I mentioned above, but they are legitimately good.
FWL players can't really pull the Low Tier Hero routine anymore. Yes, our GRF-5M and such still suck unbelievably hard, but we're no longer required by fluff/distribution-tables/RAT/etc. to be saddled with these as our main machines. We're a viable faction now, and the only real faction we're at a quality disparity issue with these days is perhaps the
Klingon Wolf Empire, and even that isn't an insurmountable one.
To answer MarikMilitiaMan's question: There's a ELRM config of the Apollo that I find worthwhile in its mission role. Adding one or two of these per every 36 Mechs or so is a fine way to clink glass bottles and tell opponents: "Warrrioooorrrssss.... come out to play-aaaayyyy..."