No its not the same.
When John came up with his idea there was no shrapnel, that could be converted into ammo at 101%.
Now we have it.
Melee hunters loot shrapnel aswell, converting it to ammo is useless as we don´t use ammo.
Repair option that uses shrapnel on uL melee weapons, just for fairness, beside that I wouldn´t bother if such an repair tool also could be used for other uL gear like guns, armor, finders, excavators and whatever is not L.
Well L melee still is f..ed but rarly used anyways, it would be like paying markup on ammo.
If markup on L kills the eco advantage of L vs uL nobody buying it. Somewhere at 101-103% already reached.
Don´t know about the newer swords, there is some nice ones around but didn´t check for eco yet.
Well got uL one with max TT above 2k PED, I don´t have to bother about L. That last long enough to do nice hunts, without interception to repair.
Befor I bougt this, I used Kat D, 4 of them and still broke to fast
Only L melee I use is, what I loot myself