If you ignore the Small Blasters Crippling bug as addressed in
my parallel thread in Technical Support the Small Blaster is spot on where it needs to be and I am quite pleased with it.
It's not the run and gun Turret that CCP tried to make it be but I'm fine with that because it turned out exactly how I wanted it to be (and how it was back when Blasters were good ages ago). The Turret has the very strong potential to be the mobile frontline support vehicle capable and providing advancing friendly infantry with covering fire as well as mowing down enemies that tread too carelessly in open areas.
So it's not the damage that's the problem. The LAV itself certainly isn't the problem being perfectly balanced right now but the problem lies in the inability in the blaster to perform at it's suggested role (actually the old role) of mobile infantry support due to lack of protection.
It's honestly very hard to provide this role when your gunner sticks out like a sore thumb from all directions with a big target on his/her/Caldari's head.
An idea that I've been dreaming about implementing for the longest of time (and actually made a thread about it two years ago) is to give the Small Blaster Turret (or all turrets if you want) the slight armor plating that comes with the dropships as seen
[here] I feel that this will at least give the Turret Operator the chance to fulfil his role before being instapoped by everyone and his mother in the surrounding area.
Note that if this plate was installed on vehicles it would not make the gunner invincible. As you can make out from the picture the only part of you that's protected would be your front torso. Everywhere else on your gunner's body is freely available to be shot at and your head can be shot from any angle.
To better explain myself through my deep late-night posting I'll make up a scenario for this with Scenario A being without the plate and Scenario B with the plate.
Scenario A: Objective A is on a bridge and the enemy are having a solid hold on the objective and with the AV they have Easy Targets like Dropships and Slow Targets like tanks are being easily taken out. You need a vehicle that can keep the enemies health down if they pop out as well as keep them suppressed in their positions so your friendlies can safely move forward without being instapoped by the deeply entrenched enemies. This is an ideal environment for the Small Blaster Turret on a mobile Platform Like the LAV.
So your team calls in the Small Blaster LAV and it goes to the Bridge to provide suppressing fire but within less than 2 seconds the gunner is immediately killed (by most likely a Rail Rifle) because he has no protection whatsoever to the enemy fire (not to mention the aim assist) and the team losses and the world goes into mourning. Scenario B:Objective A is on a bridge and the enemy are having a solid hold on the objective and with the AV they have Easy Targets like Dropships and Slow Targets like tanks are being easily taken out. You need a vehicle that can keep the enemies health down if they pop out as well as keep them suppressed in their positions so your friendlies can safely move forward without being instapoped by the deeply entrenched enemies. This is an ideal environment for the Small Blaster Turret on a mobile Platform Like the LAV.
So your team calls in the Small Blaster LAV and it goes to the Bridge to provide suppressing fire and the LAV Provides Suppressing fire for long enough for his fellow Infantrymen to get close enough to get into optimal range and have a much better chance. You could have stayed there but a smart enemy started to get on your flank and took potshots at your gunner from the side effectively neutralizing you and your gunner away from the Objective but it's all good because you were able to hold your position at longer than 5 seconds without being insta-poped by everyone and their mother.
Your Team wins and the world rejoices. Tl;dr too bad.