If the meta is being able to use a weapon at mid game without having to forma it 3+ times then Im going to keep following that stuff
This.
Though the meta often makes you forma it still.
But it's not as bad as sub-meta stuff.
They just have these ridiculously strong weapons and then never bring something out on the same level as those weapons.
Obviously players will take the strongest tool in the shed to do the job.
Players don't want to spend a lot of effort to make a weapon "okay" when there are weapons that already start at okay-level and are just better in any way.
Sure, some weapons just are fun to play with and/or look nice to spend some more effort, but most of the time, we are lazy bastards.
If they made some more weapons that are not like 50% the power of the meta (or even below), people will start to use more different weapons.
Example 1: Katana & Dragon Nikana.
Every melee weapon after those were below 50% of the power of the Dragon Nikana (roughly, haven't calculated).
Of course we can take the slow ass giant hammer, but the Nikana is fast and does a lot of damage.
Why should we take anything less?