Weapon balancing means that there is no incentive for staying alive. Maps are not designed with connectivity in mind. Instead they are designed to encourage roaming. This means that players do not have the mental edge needed to carry out the calculated moves and feigns that are necessary when deathmatching in well connected areas. They merely wander around with big weapons and overpower those they bump into until they get worn down and killed in which case they just start all over again.
Footsteps add an additional unnecessary sound cue which makes stealth almost impossible.
In Quake2 even when u walk you occasionally generate a sound. Hence, stealth techniques are not viable and this reduces deathmatch to a bigass2 type of gameplay. This again plays into the roaming style of gameplay. If armor gives good protection but was not easily rechargeable then people would take more care of their armor, playing more tactically to strike quick and deadly and control of armor areas would give a more tactical gameplay. All in all, I think the truest joy of deathmatch is the development of the mental edge, the way the mind and reflex works together in an adrenaline high.