You're going to get personal opinions
Oh I get that. But if you're going to say something that has no basis in things like facts or logic, I don't feel bad for pointing it out. His mention of balance was a good one, albeit inacurrate on the game writer's part. Trying to insist that an SMG and carbine are the same thing is stupid.
Real Life facts and logic.
Again, he's not talking Real Life.
As far as Shadowrun is concerned, they're smaller than assault rifles but bigger than machine pistols, and they autofire. Given that Shadowrun has few degrees of granularity, they decided to lump anything under that definition as "SMG". Remember in this game there's no real distinction at all between pistol ammo and rifle ammo, nor calibers for either.
No, it's not "Real Life", but for game purposes it's "Good Enough".
-k