[Kameron8]

Though I still have a question unanswered.

Is the problem really being a Katana based on SKI? We have a lot of SKI based gimmick weapons, but nobody ever cares about them enough for some mysterious reason.

The issue is with a sword using supplemental stats instead of Strength for scaling, not Ski in specific. If a katana had 60%/40% scaling with any combination of Skill, Luck, Guile, Cel, Def, Res, or Vit, the problem would remain unchanged. Daggers are a huge offender of this scaling model, and that's largely why you only see Tessens, Fangs, Dancing Shivs, and Atlaua's instead of Stingers and Hikages.

....I kinda think sanjin is the better katana anyway...

Acid damage, acid resist, scales on guile, which is crit damage.

Acid damage is more desirable than lightning damage on hit most of the time (aside from swinging at Mechs), but you can have the same crit damage as a Raijin and 30 additional stat points to put somewhere else.