Of course I dig the first part of this. It takes way too long but...
"The modules and weapons should be an improvement over what is otherwise available through min/max engineering (rather than an inferior alternative)"
That would completely invalidate all of players time spent on traditional weapons for PVP and general use. If they were to have done that I actually think they would be putting their own lives in danger from player retaliation...I have not personally gotten to use these guardian weapons but I can say that there is nothing wrong with how the weapons are actually balanced. Guardian tech is meant for Goids but it does have its niche uses in PVP. The weapons themselves seem fine. They do their jobs that they are meant to do. But nobody can get them in a reasonable manner. That's the problem.
Guardian weapons work well for a mixed loadout, - unlike ax which are pretty crap on anything but Thargoids - they just need to up the drop rate of blueprints a bit.
In find Guardian plasma chargers vastly superior to the "normal" ones for pve and pvp - being able to so finely control the power of the shot is both effective and fun.