Pulse Laser efficiency is precisely why raising the damage/shot but lowering the ROF makes sense to me. No, you're not getting through shields any faster (it's still 300 DPS for 300 flux) but you are getting through armor/hull faster because of the greater damage/shot. Saying "I don't worry about the Pulse Laser (or IR Pulse) getting through armor" doesn't necessarily mean you turn these weapons off once they get through shields. I would imagine you're still firing them. That means any kind of reduction in time-to-kill is an efficiency gain, just on the backend.
Yes, my ships continue firing pulse lasers at targets after shields drop because that is all they have or part of the entire assault package.
Giving unlimited weapon access and sufficient dissipation, the only reason I would use Pulse Laser instead of Heavy Blaster for the ships is better shield-cracking efficiency, and only when IR PL is not a better option.
Pulse Laser getting through armor faster does not matter if it fails to win the flux war in the first place.
The “problem” with the pulse laser, if there is one, is that it’s bad at breaking Shields. You have a hard time effectively flux dumping into enemy shields because your efficiency is 1 to 1 and your raw output is lower than HBs. You then do not win the flux war against any ship that has even a modicum of kinetic.
This is main problem of Pulse Laser. I go out of my way to put ePD+IPDAI on the ship to buff IR PLs and make two of them better than each Pulse Laser. I suppose I could use Safety Override instead and chop shot range of everything else (although I start using blasters with that much dissipation).
Aside from IR PL having 0.8 efficiency, Autopulse also has somewhere between 0.8 and 0.9 efficiency. Pulse Laser tries to be mini-plasma cannon, but its hit strength or DPS is not good enough for that role with only 1.0 efficiency.