Commission helps, but not enough. Ideally you want the best of all techs, but no one faction has them all. Plus, taking commission can hurt it other ways. High-tech has some gems (like quad lance Paragon), but I primarily use midline with few of the best of low-tech and high-tech.
Don't forget energy weapons also lost extra dmg at high flux and then weren't rebalanced iirc.
They were. I think Plasma Cannon was changed the most, but others mostly just got a small damage boost.
Most beams got more range and/or less OP cost. The rest got about +25% damage. Pulse lasers got around +30-40% more. Mining blaster got ripped off with less. It used to compete with pulse laser, but now it is trash except for Hyperion. Plasma cannon was not changed at first, then it got passthrough and its stats scaled upward, but now with weaker skills, plasma cannon is mostly unusable.