I believe it was for PVP purposes and the fact that sometimes even after several minutes has passed since the heavy drop, some people are still running around with machine gun ammo effectively using it as a primary.
The counter to this argument is that in the D2 beta, the fusion rifle gets six shots after picking up power ammo effectively making it the new "machine gun" of D2 so to speak.
Thoughts?
[i]~Nyahh! =^,.,^=[/i]
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Yes, they removed the entire class of weapons because it was too effective in PvP. This has become a PvP game, whether we like it or not.