Being at such a range the animation is too slow to complete in time for me to resume any other action and in most cases the guy with the minigun catches me in 1hex range while i'm completing the animation( that's where latency really comes into play).
and if you want to make p90 dominant in close combat, then it's simple, decrease minimal/maximal damage in conjuction with increasing bullets shot per burst and magazine size, so it scales better with BRD.
Shotgun and knocking down is a must in some way.
This is true too, but I believe it might make things interesting to add guns some other qualities than damage and range. Otherwise it'd end up being just sg version of minigun.
Improved flamer is not available, what Solar did now was just stupid as always. He introduces new pyromaniac perk, that is useless without improved flamer witch he made almost unavailable, as well flamers in general need a range boost of few hexes.