Are commandos always best off to choose the commando rifle?

From the fuzzy bits I've been able to piece together, although there are many class-neutral weapons in the game, the Commando-specific rifles apparently do AOE splash damage near the target they're shooting at. So my question is whether as a general rule most commandos should stick with their class-specific weapon even if the DPS is lower than some of the available class-neutral weapons that don't do splash damage?

My thinking is that if, as a commando, your primary role is to attract damage to yourself and keep it off of your teammates, then splash damage should theoretically add to your overall threat level and help to keep most foes in a mob angry at you instead of angry at the engineers and operatives in your team.

What do you think? What have you Android users who've been banging on SL for a while now observed?

Although I've only had a full day to play, I would use two weapons. A heavy cannon for mobs while a dps weapon for bosses.

Normal attacking seems to be very very important in this game, so DPS actually comes into play as compared to PL.

As soon as I can 25/26 my commando, I'll be looking to invest into one of each :)

read from another thread commandos should go with the weapon that has the highest max damage. the higher spike damage generates more agro

I run with 2 sergeants repulser rifle for single target and wastelander for multiple mobs as cannons give splash damage.

I originally thought that the sergeants light pistol would be way better for single target tanking due to the high DPS. Soooo I did a lot of complicated math, taking into account armor and such (Based on the 53 to 1 ratio someone else pieced together), and over the course of a minute, rifle came out on top every time. DPS is great, but when each attack is thwarted by armor AND it has a lower AVG damage, pistol just does not cut it... no matter what DPS says.

Heavy Cannon your way through a stage, and swap to rifle on boss. (or don't worry about rifle yet as we don't have a tough enough boss to worry about being best tank possible)

Budget characters can still be awesome with just a wastelander to their name and the correct build.

So just curious but cannons are the only class of weapon that have a splash DMG effect?

Against mobs, the net damage appears to be in favor of the heavy commando rifle.

Against bosses, the lower damage and lower skill damage are in favor of a regular rifle.

@Rob:
Cannons appear to be the only main class of weapon with splash damage. Other weapons: pistols, rifles, repeaters, and the class specific (dual pistols/gloves) appear to be single target.

Thank you very much for the info.