and you'll never spend the technical mod to make a decent assault rifle because technical mods are rare(r) and saving it for the hyperblaster is a better use of time.
Maybe, but the Assault Rifle uses only Agility mods. Since the Hyperblaster only uses a single one, I would say that it's worth popping one into the Chaingun as a temporary solution.
However, this is probably my beta attitude left over since for a couple betas it was nearly impossible to find a Plasma Rifle.
That said, I've always found the High Power Plasma Rifle more useful for Ammochain. You've obviously got the ammo for it, you never need to reload, and this means you don't need to spend the next three levels going for Whizkid. A bit of an accuracy issue, but generally the number of quite powerful projectiles compensates well enough.
That said, I don't have an issue with it. Ammochain's requirements do render chainguns largely pointless, but they're still probably pretty good if you're going for Cateye, and they can be useful in a generalist game since 10mm ammo is so common for the first half.
I say "probably" because I've never done a Cateye run.