Phasers are better than Star Wars blasters and light sabers

Lightsaber Versatility The range of a lightsaber can be thought of as a function, as it functions to fit the user wielding it. Yoda, for example, used a short lightsaber commonly referred to as a shoto due to his small stature [1]. Secondly, while the training variant doesn't necessarily stun, it does serve the same purpose of a stun setting, in that it does not cause serious injury to the target (note my use of quotation marks in the precious round to indicate that the term 'stun' was a metaphor, although a hard enough strike to the head might count as a stun). As you mention, these are two different functions of the lightsaber with respect to lethality. Range I do not see evidence of them being chargeless particles, and in-fact, according to the Nadion page on Memory Alpha, a Nadion-based phaser beam was used to avert a polaric ion explosion [2]. Since the radiation from the polaric ions is what created the explosion that devastated the planet, and such radiation is ionized (the ionized particles being used for power) it can be inferred that there was a charge in the nadion phaser beam to allow the ionized rift to not explode [3]. Therefore there is reason to believe that the phaser has a charge, and is therefore able to be deflected (or in someway interrupted) by the blade of a lightsaber. Blasters Sabotage How do you know that such sabotage would cause the same amount of damage. Secondly, a few meter wide explosion is roughly equivalent to that of an M67 fragmentation grenade, which has a fatality radius of five meters [4]. This means that a phaser wielder with a sabotaged phaser is walking around with a grenade just waiting to go off. Radiation Couldn't a Starfleet officer utilize a radiation suit to protect themselves while still having to deal with phaser malfunctions from the radiation? Secondly, such modifications required a chip from a specific type of android to be implanted in the phaser, and it is unknown just how long such a process would take place if the phaser wielder was lucky enough to either be, or be near such an android in the first place. Versatility Such a stun setting isn't necessarily for battle, as a bounty hunter's target could be attempting to flee the bounty hunter. This is analogous to a modern day police officer discharging a taser at a fleeing assailant. Theoretically speaking, a blaster could be used as a torch, since all one should need to do is keep the Heter valve open slightly to allow a constant stream of Tibanna gas into the XCiter chamber to energize the gas enough that it could produce heat. That Wookiepedia article you cite only refers to one blaster design. One doesn't point to an AK-47's accuracy and say that all guns are inaccurate. For example, the hunting blaster was a common firearm amongst the Rebel Alliance and was quite accurate as a weapon [6]. Gas While it does seem to be that the plasma never exits the phaser (although no explanation is given to explain this), it must be the case that either the plasma (and therefore the gas causing it) is either slowly being whittled away by the creation of the nadion particles (law of conservation of mass/energy), or the power cell is both generating the energy to excite the gas into plasma and creating the nadion particles. The former scenario means that the plasma is limited in quantity, as the plasma would eventually be completely converted into nadions. The latter scenario requires that the power cell is being drained at a high rate, as it must generate enough energy to convert a gas into a plasma (such capability is only now just being done in modern times, and is normally only found is stars). Tunnel Vaporization It should be noted that such a capability required the highest level that a phaser can fire at, which obviously means that it would have drained much more of the power cell (if not also the plasma) to accomplish such a task, not to mention that there are materials that is still couldn't penetrate at that setting [7]. Blasters are also capable of this, as Han Solo's blaster in particular could "blow large chunks from stone walls and smaller holes and pockmarks out of durasteel bulkheads" [8]. Unlike phasers, there is no evidence to suggest that Han Solo's blaster was modified to increase the power, as the only modification that was made to his was to remove the optical sight for quicker drawing [9]. Bolt Capability The only mention of a phaser discharging in the cited episode in act two when "[the evil Kirk] disables the transporter ionizer with a phaser shot..." [10]. There is no evidence of a bolt or bullet-like version of the nadion beam is discharged. 1. http://starwars.wikia.com... 2. http://en.memory-alpha.org... 3. http://en.memory-alpha.org... 4. http://en.wikipedia.org... 5. http://en.memory-alpha.org... 6. http://starwars.wikia.com... 7. en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Phaser#Sidearm_settings 8. http://starwars.wikia.com... 9. http://starwars.wikia.com... 10. http://en.memory-alpha.org...