Dzian, thinking about it, the delay between say, ifrit's bow with a delay of 4.3s, and say, Verdant Shortbow with a delay of 3.5 seconds (.8 seconds less) is a huge difference. accounting for lag, if you're spamming as fast as you can, you can essentially have a 2.5 second delay period between a WS and a light shot. So the fact that you are able to cut .8 seconds off of each light shot essentially cuts the time between WS's down significantly, thus causing more WS and light shot spam, and potentially more damage overall.

It really comes down to speed vs power. And of course, the fight matters a lot as well. So I might have to extend any research I do to specific fights/spiritbond parties/etc., since I might get different results depending on the situation.