I HIGHLY agree with this, the SMG users are still in high jeopardy when approached by a rifleman, even at point blank range the rifle is still a one shot kill in the head and any seasoned AoS player has without a doubt become accustomed to shooting faces.
The SMG certainly needs boost of speed, an accuracy upgrade would be nice as well, It's still workable if you crouch, but it's godawful for anything other than room clearing or tunnel diving.
As for a sniper rifle, I think that's a good idea, with a slow pace to tag along, but only when carrying the rifle itself should the player be slowed substantially, they should have a slightly slower speed with the rifle away, but noticeably slower with it out. This makes it workable for snipers to spread themselves out and move into hiding spots instead of being heavily hindered by their heavy weapons.

HRRK

There are maps where they would have to rely on speed to outrun flying rounds, get around AND flank the enemy. Sneaking around would only work best on maps like Hallway, where the geography can easily be mined out into tunnels and what not.

Regardless, a 1 v 1 with a rifleman could mean certain death, which is why I proposed the OP, so that the odds are balanced.

of course its useless against a rifle, thats why you use it in situations where you can easily sneak up on riflers so they dont head shot you from across the map, such as winding caves, cities, buildings, etc etc.

Let's face it. The SMG is useless against a stampede of rifles.

And seeing as people count it as a sniper rifle, then it should weigh like one. People should also move in accordance to their weapon. Rifles, normal speed, SMGs, a bit faster.

This way both weapon classes have both its ups and downs, rifle being powerful with the drawback of a slowish running speed, and the SMG with the drawback of weak firepower, but the ability to outrun riflemen.

However, since a cone has been added to the rifle, which makes sense seeing as normal rifles aren't the precision type, the game should introduce an actual sniper rifle, being highly accurate, with a low rate of fire, along with a slow running speed.

Sniper Rifle - Long Range, Slow Movement, Low Rate of Fire, but accurate
Rifle - Medium/Short, Normal Movement
SMG - Short, Faster Movement

I'm tired.