User blog comment:Charcoal121/BF3: My Buffs and Nerfs/@comment-4153606-20120116084815/@comment-28584497-20120117224257

The devs didn't intend weapons for different roles, they intended them to be customized to the user's satisfaction. That was a major selling point of the game.

And no, battlerifles are not meant to be flexible. They were designed with the idea of giving soldiers the firepower of rifles with the speed of a submachine gun or machine gun. Battlerifle = early assault rifle.