Snipers didn't even suck really, they haven't changed much other than the nerfs from the April update or whenever. It was just that nobody used them. I remember I only used praedyth's revenge on shores of time when I spawned at C. That was the only time I sniped, so I'd do that maybe once or twice a week.

Agreed. Snipers didn't suck at all then. People just didn't snipe or do it well. There also wasn't trials, a game mode where everybody defaults to sniper and pretty much every engagement is two snipers. Without trials the game didn't feel as sniper heavy. Also early on people like me came in trying to play like COD where it's mostly primary weapons used. So people were not relying as heavily on secondaries. then they nerfed the primaries at the same time guns like felwinters became available and it was apparent you could close the distance against the newly weak primaries with a shotgun and everyone used felwinters. It wasn't till there were many rounds of shotgun nerfs along with the introduction of trials that snipers became really widely used. Trials a virtually entirely ranged fighting game. That's why mida is big, thorn with send it and damage over time, was good.

"So people were not relying as heavily on secondaries. " Selective memory is selective. Secondary and heavies reign supreme in vanilla, since ammo was abundant.