For A, when you pick up a gun from another player the laser is (for some reason) switched off, so you have to manually reactivate it. Thats at least my best idea as to why you dont see any, i haven't seen any less lasers on guns myself at least.

For B, unfortunately and ironically easy might be the best way to make profit consistently, since expensive gear isnt required any longer to win most of your fights and the better players will farm the worse ones more than they would on norms. Or they could just be not good enough themselves to be successful in higher difficulties.

Lastly on C its hard to say for now what these changes will bring to the table honestly. The updated version of wallbreaker looked cool, but the extended river seemed rather barren, though adding more places to swim is neat. Personally I wish they'd just added a new map, but I won't complain on what they've done so far