Even in the originals, if I was going EW, I usually had an alien blaster or a YK pulse weapon in one of my active slots in case things got to real to be trophy-hunting with lasers. For characters that could not use the sniper rifle, Interplay added a turret mode allowing those characters to use turrets.
I find myself using 'outlier' weapons like the holorifle, the MF Hyperbreeder Alpha, and the LAER more often than anything from the more well-delineated categories. Since they seem to have done away with the difference in damage types, though (I can't find it listed for any energy weapons at The Vault or Nukapedia, anyway), it's kind of tough to say what counts as a laser and what doesn't. I'd say 'laser' hands-down if it weren't for the new NV plasma weapons actually looking like their nostalgic original-game counterparts, but I don't honestly use those much. The feeling that you'd 'earned' your kill was another big draw, as plas shots to the eyes always felt too much like playing the endgame on easy mode.
It's not as powerful, but I always favored the animations, the way laser kills seemed and sounded 'cleaner' than plasma. Between the two, I've been a fan of laser since the originals, especially since sfall/Killap's RP instituted high resolutions and the bigger screens actually made the lasers' higher max range count for something.
