Basic physics tells us that a manipulator, composed of fine motor components sheathed in a stronger alloy of some sort, will not be as strong as a solid piece of that alloy. Or multiple levels of layered alloys. The point is that manipulators require not-so-strong components in order to operate properly (i.e. gears, wires, or whatever you're using to allow the "fingers" to have precision movements), and those components are probably going to reduce the overall materials strength of whatever is on the end of your arm.
As for your "Gee Whiz Aren't I So Smart to Evolve This Design Into Beam Blade!!1!" argument - I think I'll save the expense on a piece of equipment that will be rarely used (barring, once again, the development of a MacGuffin like Minovsky Particles), and save it for something useful like more mobile suits - maybe with mecha-sized sniper rifles. Even your "Gee, I can switch weapons!" argument fails to carry water. Unlike Gundams, real-world mobile suits don't need to all be right-handed.. You've got two arms. Might as well make use of both of them. Cannon goes in one arm, piledriver/retractable-spring-mounted-blade/cheap-melee-weapon-of-your-choice goes in the other. Cannons that require two limbs to steady can't be stowed properly in the event that you've got a sudden melee on your hands. And you can just as easily mount them over the shoulder on the odd chance that you for some reason need to keep a free "end of limb" o! n your hypothetical unit.
Is it pretty?
Probably not.
But it gets the job done, and it costs less than a bunch of fancy stuff that probably won't be used very often.
I mean, seriously, what was the point of putting arms and hands on a Guntank? I like the design. But did the arms and hands do ANYTHING that justified the expense of putting them there?
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