Imo it would be nice to see (more) variety in the mod. I agree with Hinkel that it would get rather stale if both sides were the same. If not faction-wise then at least variety in melee/shooting in different rifles, as there is now, would be nice to see continued.
Also, I am wondering about what will be done with the sharpshooter rifles. In some earlier pictures both the confederate and union sharpshooters had breech loading rifles. Firstly, I understand that people are opposed to the reloading on the move ability and that it can be unbalanced. But will they, being breech loaders, offer a more mobile role to the sharpshooters or will you give them a sniper-like role with high accuracy but slower reload. Historically the sharps rifle (breech loader) where faster to reload than infantry rifles and the sharpshooters could keep up a higher volume of fire. This
source states that the sharps rifle could be fired 8-10 times a minute (7-6 second reload) and another source, an account of the Berdan Sharpshooters at Gettysburg saying something along these lines: "On a good day a sharpshooter could shoot up to 10 shots a minute" (can try to find the source later), which also falls into the 8-10 range. They were also rather accurate, but I understand that they can't be both accurate and have a quick reload in the mod for balance reasons.
Tbh I wouldn't mind having a sharpshooter rifle with no/very slight accuracy bonus but with a fast reload, which would let us be a mobile skirmishing force instead of relatively immobile snipers. Basically give the sharps carbine to the sharpshooters. Another idea would be to have 2 rifles for the sharpshooters like the infantry have, one which allows us to be mobile, and another more sniper-like one. The same Wikipedia source above claims that the Berdan Sharpshooters also used whitworth rifles which is already used in the mod by the sharpshooters.
The sharpshooters were a hot debate before and there was a hasty solution to it with the 0.5 patch. I hope that in 1.0 there can be a good and well thought out solution to them, as I don't like our current position with the weird long rifles.
/end rant
Merry christmas and good luck with the patch! I hope it will bring lots of pew pew with it.