Every prototype weapon has an Aurum version which only requires level three in the correct skill. Yes Aurum items are supposed to be sneak peeks for weapons but this is just silly.

For example, the 'Grimlock' Guristas Assault Forge Gun requires only forge gun operation 3 but is much better than the DAU/2A Assault forge gun (trying to recall it's name from memory) which actually requires level 4.

Pay-to-win is the ability to pay for items with better/equal attributes than items with equal/higher skill requirements. And these are just that.

I understand that Aurum items are one of the ways for CCP to make money in a free to play game, but they need to think of other ways. If you ask me, Aurum items should only be of equal value to standard items and require no skills (a true preview of a weapon). Why should I waste time to get the SP for a proto weapon if one exists at a much lower SP cost at a cost of real money? Sure the Aurum version might not benefit from as much skills, but the skill difference is minimal. Two people with equal skills, however, and the Aurum item will have the edge over the non-Aurum item; henceforth, you pay to have an edge.

I just hate being killed by these kinds of items because the other person might not even have the skills while I will have to work my butt off if I want the same proto weapon.

Problem is, the weapon skills don't necessarily help.

For instance, if you have an Assault Scrambler Rifle, the "reduce charge time" passive for scramblers does literally nothing for you. So if you use Aurum to buy the PRO version, you haven't missed out on any skill bonus at all.

It's debatable how useful two rank of most skills are to begin with, but with the Assault Scrambler you will always get literally nothing out of the Rifle passive.