I felt that way with my first rifle, I think with high crit etc it could be good but yeah I prefer autos. Plus autos bettter for people like me who shoot like they're blind.
It really depends on the rifle. Something like the SVD will let you fire a lot of shots in quick succession but at detriment to the DPS. You'll want something like the M44 if you want to one shot mobs but that's then at the expense of clip size.
I don't have problem with rifles just sniper rifles, for a start you are swaying about like drunk making head shots extremely difficult, why no steady button.
I think I wandered into a mission something to do with a medical center and the enemies were taking me out with a couple of shots. Yet they were wearing nothing but gas masks and my headshots were just tickling them assuming I managed to get the odd one in. I suspect that they were a higher level than I was though the map did not indicate this. The area was at the bottom of the map.