Okay I thought about this a little more and I came to the conclusion: At this point it doesn't fucking matter.
The basic concept of LW went down the drain a long ass fucking time ago. Imo you should have neither allowed switching nor c-bug. The powerful spawn weapons also suck.
I am not blaiming anybody for anything but I dont think it increased the player count in any way. It only changed LW into something more casual. Fighting felt different and awesome with the LW rules of the past.
And what is the big difference when it comes down to noobs? Regulars will rape noobs, no matter the given weapons. The noob vs. noob balance remains untouched as everybody has the same weapons.
Another aspect: What do noobs think that start with a pistol and are getting raped by sawnoffs? They think "SHIT you bitch, just wait until I get better weapons".
What do noobs think that start with powerful weapons and are getting raped by the same weapons? They think "Meh, you no life /q". They don't even notice that there is more behind the server than spawning and killing with the given weapons.
+1 for downgrading LW to some early version