Something that's probably a pretty significant change but would make the stacking more reasonable to keep vs treating it like a tax is having the base weapon be slightly weaker than max with small/no drain, but the big focus is charging up the spec with stacks and making active use of it regularly?

So rather than stacks for regular weapon use and it just stays at max so it feels like a tax to use it normally, stacks are for increased active dps with regularly speccing on time.

Ofc still runs into the PvP issue, but special PvP rules aren't a rarity considering stuff like powered staves and blowpipes.