Interesting! I tend to make weapons with a higher fire rate have a lower DPS because they have greater utility than slower firing weapons. Have I got my balancing all backwards these past few years?
It depends on what you're shooting at I guess. Against slow nonmaneuvering targets where you don't have to take a lot of evasives, DPS wins. But if you're under any kind of pressure, the ability to put all your damage out in the moment when you actually have a shot — when the Dragon is right in the crosshair AND you don't have to evade a missile AND you're not getting whacked by beams AND you have enough energy — is more valuable.
So spike-damage alpha tends to trump DPS in those circumstances.
Obviously if you swing too far towards DPS weapon supremacy you can create some very boring guns. This is why games like Halo tend to keep their DPS weapons pretty weak, since they're easier to use. And a high-alpha weapon costs you more DPS each time you miss.
Another way to think about it is that a guy who has to hide for 59 seconds and shoot you for 1 second is more dangerous than a guy who has to shoot you for 40 seconds to score a kill, even though the second guy technically has better DPS.