I wonder if they will follow a similar pattern to the colonia engineers in that the more we use them the better they get.Actually, as we unlock engineers we're starting to see what use many mats have. Quite a lot of the missions rewards are useful, it turns out. And the same for stuff we find in settlements. And we've yet to unlock all engineers (looks like a long way to go yet with that).
Still agree that we need to get rewarded mats for combat though.