Despite AC6 having been out for 3 years, I can't recall ever seeing any discussion about the fundamental shift from only have 2 main active weapons at once to Gen 6 having 4.
Despite not having extensions/old-type shoulder weapons, ACs in Gen 6 effectively have the most firepower available at once compared to the past since you don't need to switch your active left/right weapon like you do in prior generations.
This has pretty interesting effects on weapon balance since I'd say that generally any single Gen 6 weapon is less potent than prior, but again that's made up for the fact that you have potentially 3 other weapons also being used at the same time vs just 1 of the past.
Additionally, since weapons had a higher general power level, you could forgo a backweapon slot and not feel like you're handicapping yourself. This is totally not the case in AC6, not running 4 filled weapon slots is handicapping yourself for essentially no benefit, since the speed/energy gain doesn't amount to tangible benefits.
This also has a pretty felt change in how Armored Core had to set up its control scheme. Because all the shoulder/trigger buttons are active weapons, there was the conundrum of having to control the camera while also being able to quickboost. This likely also led to Hard Lock being a thing to alleviate this, and we all know how much this fundamentally changed the game.
Curious how other people feel about the active weapon change and its effects on AC's gameplay.