Remember, alot of people have "special little snowflake" syndrome, or believe that if "A=1" then "B,C,D must all =1" as well. Meaning that everything must be in perfect happy balance or there is a fundamental flaw.
Well, sad to say, in EVERY rpg (game, board, computer) this has never been true. (which the possible exception of DnD 4, which has taken all flavor out every class and reduced them to 'at X level you do Y, always') every 'class' has its advantages and disadvantages in a host of situations. Some gain power very fast, some gain it slowly. Some peak fast, some never peak at all.
To give you an idea of what I mean, my group has started a new shadowrun game this week and for the first time in 16 years I am NOT the GM. We had a few base guidelines going in to character creation. Come up with a concept first, no ability score could be 1, only 2 skills could be at 1, and use the Chummer character builder to create the character (so no 'fuzzy math/logic could 'accidentally' creep in), must have all your starting gear on the print out, or you are forced to buy in game (and suffer a price index!)
We ended up with a human bayou swamp shaman, a troll weapons expert, a dwarf rigger, and my elf pistoleer face. Then we began play. It was a simple 'hostage return' run, get in a building, get the mark get out, about a dozen guards spread about the place in total. And.... To get there we would have to cross about 4 checkpoints (A,B,B,C security zones) well this made the troll next to useless cause the smallest weapon he bought at creation was a LIGHT MACHINEGUN!!! The Mage was packing a revolver (with permit), the rigger didn't want to bring his armed drone, and I brought my permitted weapons (a pistol, 2 machine pistols). During the whole mission, I proved to be the most effective in combat, dropping 8 of the 12 combatants. The Mage proved to be the least effective, not dropping any. The rigger was never really in combat at all as he provided ariel over watch and hacked the camera feed to the building to provide insight intel.
At our current karma level, I am easily the most powerful of the group. I have 3 IP, and a INIT of 10. A full 2 points higher then the troll, 3 over the Mage. The rigger, was 11 (do a little better then me). My pistols skill is a full 6 points higher then any if the others main combat skills. (troll's long arms, Mage's spell casting, dwarf's gunnery)
However, how much will that change with 50 karma? Or 100? Or 200? I have no idea. All I know is that my pistoll skill can maybe 4 more dice before it is capped... The Mage has no such cap...
Today I am king of the hill, 250 karma from now? Who knows.
There is no absolute balance in any game. Shadowrun does a good job of trying to make sure all starting players have a level playing field through a BP system instead of rolling random dice for attributes, but player choice can still cripple a character (troll with assault cannon, minigun, lightmachinegun, and no way to transport them safely!!). As the game progresses and karma and money are earned, player choices can widen or narrow the gap between characters. GMs can help or hinder this through the limiting of some items (I have NEVER allowed a guass rifle in my campaigns, no matter how much a player begged. Same for military armor).
At the end of the day, the player that whines "nerf 'X' it's too powerful!!" usually is really saying "nerf X cause it better then my favorite class/item/ability" and has not really thought about how long or hard it was to get to that point. How many games is it going to take to get 250 karma? Will all the characters even survive?? By that long of time hasn't the characters who played 'second fiddle' deserve their time on center stage (if their player made wise desicisions)??
Food for thought before you start swinging a bat at anything.
