"I'm viewing the main concern with a disparity between criticals afforded through weapons as whether or not experience gain will be significantly impacted by the number of criticals done per hit.

If this is the case, and experience were kept within a reasonable range would most of these concerns be alleviated?"

Hmm no. I think the main problem is likely PK based. If knife and axe using (the two types I have a lot of experience with) gave the same XP with the same builds and skills etc, there'd still be a big PK difference, from what I can tell. Using knife to PK was a lot less effective. My first clue-in to this difference between weapons was getting GM-ship by killing Zoltan... The fight looked like I hadn't activated all locks.

I still think this is the least creative way possible to make a difference between weapons. There is *so* much that could be done. As you pointed out, there are differences, but they are completely secret from the players. Making them not top secret and adding more etc would provide true variety to what weapon one choses, based on what style one has. This current difference turns it into a simple "What gives the best crit power per devs spent?"