what if you let assaults use 2 light weapons

They just need their bonuses completely reworked, its very clear CCP has no clue what to do with the bonuses for assaults.

Just look at amarr, there IS a reason to run Amarr Assault over Amarr Scout... the laser weaponry heat build up bonus. I think we need to focus more on this.

The role bonus is bogus, 25% weapon fitting is a joke and everyone knows it. I would, personally, change this to a 3% per level on shield and armor module efficacy. Increase their base PG/CPU to be high enough to fit what they need, a bonus to PG/CPU fitting on weapons is not the right way to deal with PG/CPU on this class.

Assault bonuses should be to help overcome the weakness of a particular weapon type.

Being:

Gallente - Range
Caldari - Dispersion
Minmater - Clip size (due to high RoF)
Amarr - Overheat


So we sort of have that for min and amarr assaults already, and those two classes have clear reasons to choose scout vs assault.

I do think we need more rifle nerfs to make these bonuses more pronounced though, just like was done with equipment.

Rail Weaponry - Needs a nerf to hip fire dispersion (maybe a slight damage increase to bring back to par)
Combat Rifles - Need a damage reduction and an equivalent RoF boost to bring their dps back to original value.
Gallente weaponry - Further reduction to range on some as needed
Amarr weaponry - Increase to heat cost

Now change:

Caldari Assault Bonus: Reduced dispersion on rail weaponry per level
Gallente Assault Bonus: Increased range of plasma weaponry per level.
Minmatar Assault Bonus: Increased clip size of projectile weaponry per level.
Amarr Assault Bonus: Decreased heat cost of laser weaponry per level.

6-7% should be the target for these bonuses.

In this way, logis, scouts, and heavies can run gimped versions of light weapon rifles while the assault suit is necessary to really make them shine.

Finally change it so that assault and logis have the same base hp and High/Low slot layout.

If Logis are still underpowered, it might be time to give them all sidearm slots. The bonuses should be reason enough to run assault over slayer logi.

I remember some time ago CCP spoke about introducing an equipment type that would act as a deployable shield of sorts. Essentially it would act similar to a nanohive except that the surrounding bubble would act as a barrier allowing the user to create his own temporary cover.

As we now see with Scouts, CCP has begun to introduce "abilities" to classes. Yes, everyone can equip a cloak, but Scouts are the target audience while everyone else must incur penalties if they wish to make use of them. How about introduce something similar with Assaults?

Introducing "Bubble shields" or whatever you'd call them and giving Assaults a 75% fitting reduction to them would give Assaults something unique and identifyable to the battlefield. These bubbles would act as shields that can neither be penetrated from inside or out (by damage, not suits) until some threshold of damage was reached. The problem being that Assaults would also possibly require a second equipment slot. It's tricky, but I'm interested if it's something that would actually benefit Assaults.

Of course, a few other things need to be addressed like the racial bonuses, slots, and suit stats but I think this would at least give Assault suits an identity.

Thoughts?

Edit: As for the proposed changes you want to make for the assault suit skills, they still don't really pack that punch that other specialisations do. What might be interesting is if assaults got bonuses to speed and stamina as a role bonus, or something that lets them get into and out of engagements quickly. It's also important that we, as a community, figure out what the assault role should be doing.

Make them the heavy assault cruisers of dust

amarr assault get 3% armor hp and 3% armor resistances per medium level
the same overheat bonus and an additional laser bonus.
Now the assault gets two bonuses for the medium skill that they need to get assaults, and bonuses from the assault skill itself.

Fix the caldari suit recharge rates and give them a 7.5 % regulator buff and 3% shield resistances per level.
Lower energizers a bit or increase the penalty. then assault gives them a bonus to all hybrids like eve does. Optimal range-dispersion-reload. Pick two or add your own that are caldari themed. (they should have more missile weapons which would make it easy with a velocity/flight time bonus. But we have to wait for ccp for that.
The idea is to get it to where at max suit level 5medium, 5 assault and max shield skills and all low slots dedicated to regulators you get close to passive recharge like the caldari logistics used to. I think cal got around to half of a second. A proper dedicated shield tank until you get fluxed.

Gallente depends on what happens with ferroscale, reactive, and repair modules. They need to be buffed because it wouldnt be fair to give the gallente giant bonuses to them to get them where they should be working for gallente. Anyway medium gives ferroscale/reactive bonus and armor repairer bonus. assault skill gives 2 gallente themed hybrid bonuses (to all hybrids, just like caldari, they share hybrids) like small damage bonus, rof, or whatever. and fix the other hybrid weapons that are already broken.
ar is supposed to be highest damage. Not combat rifle. especially when combat rifle has longer range than an ar.

Minmatar get a sprint, strafe, movement speed bonus and if they're slots stay the same I guess some kind of small shield bonus like caldari. Or damage mod bonus and forgo tanking altogether.
They can keep they're current ammo bonus and get another min themed bonus. Rof, falloff. I'm not sure what direction to take minmatar. Leave that up to ccp or the minmatar community. Combat rifle would be rebalanced so it's not outdoing the ar in it's own area.

All assaults switch slot layouts with logis get the CPU and pg to fit them and lose they're equipment slot. you don't need equipment on a killing suit. Your now relying on logi support to heal/resupply/spawn in/get revived.
I'd argue axe the sidearm altogether on assaults

Mediums act as the current assaults. 1 equipment. 1 sidearm, 1 light weapon, 1 grenade slot and make them cheaper than logis or assaults.

do this for all specialized suits, 4 bonuses and requires two suit skills to maximize effectiveness.

I like the idea behind giving the Medium suit skill a bonus. This would have to somehow be applied to the rest of the frames as well if it were to happen.

It would at least give people a reason to max out the basic frame skills.