Over the last 8 months or so, I've tried a number of setups, and have learnt the following
AR - Highest overall attack rating (3700ish) - Okay damage in pvm, but in pvp, just not enough grunt to do significant damage to the bulk of other professions, the possible exceptions being those with low evades, no natural healing capabilities, and minimal defensive toolkits (I'm not including enfs here, as the recent crop of AAD enfs, are becoming a pain in the rear). It's nice to have enough AR to perk the evade profs, but of course, not having useful perks to hit them with, is a nightmare.
Dual Envies - Average 3300 attack rating - Great dmg in pvm, pvp dmg still pretty okay, harder to hit the evaders, but the low evaders get dropped pretty easy.
Envy/Rapier - Again average 3300 attack rating - Best pvm dmg, pvp a bit of a washout.
All in all, though I enjoyed the dual envy setup, it did feel too much like I was a heavy fixer, without the defense, without the hots, and when they got the FA buffs, I really began to wonder why I bothered.
I have always seen soldiers as being assault rifle specialists, we are the heavy weapons specialists and it really should show.
In dual setup, we should outshine fixers in terms of pure dmg, they have the defense, we are meant to have the dmg, right now, we dont.
In assault rifle setup, we should be able to hit everything, the trade off is, we dont have multiple specials, we dont have big perk chains, but we should HIT.. and HIT HARD!
I'm probably going around in circles, I'm trying to get my own thoughts in order here.
As to reflect caps and the such like, I'm relatively happy with the proposed changes, however I hope that the same will apply to traders and that blasted BR.. there really needs to be a downside to them using it, cuz in my experience, there is none.