Durandal, i appreciate your testing i really do, but the majority of players are not like you.
I believe everyone here had something to say, and all the facts and arguments have been stated.
Everyone makes an opinion based on his own personal experiance with scatterguns, as it should be.
So with no more debating in mind i have a suggestion. Lets move on to a final stage and vote on this, because its clearly shown there is much diffrence in opinions, but the subject is important.
So i suggest this: Make three possible answers, you tic one of them that answers the following questions( it will rhyme ironically)
What is to be done with a scattergun?
a) remove
b) rebalance
c) leave as it is
Give it a month for the people to vote, and see what the community really wants
The most fair and logical step