The point of a catalyst is to improve upon the gun not as a buff but to add a new aspect after earning it. Kinda like a reward for using the gun and working on what feels like a mini-quest for it. Many games have similar things like when you go on a quest with a starting weapon and by the end its a better weapon. You wouldn’t go and say “why wasn’t this weapon like this from the start” you would think “i worked hard on this quest to improve this weapon to its current state”