Well, yes, but I mean more in terms of general balance, not limited changes.

Using Dota as an example again, Icefrog (the dev) often buffs heroes that don't make a good showing at competitive events and nerfs overrepresented heroes. The analogue to Hunt would be that if certain guns don't see any play at the highest ELO, they might be brought up a slight amount to increase viability. As a result, more casual players feel "Oh, the weapon I always/sometimes used got buffed, I'll use it more" and the effect then trickles down that way. Mosin/Dolch hasn't entered the equation.

Of course, it's just speculation and by no means implies that Crytek will have the same approach or that, even if they did, a similar effect would take place as to what I've described. It matters where Crytek's focus for development lies. If they want it to be more competitive, they'll aim changes at competitive levels of play. If they want a more casual approach, competitive players might feel a lower ceiling with the game. As it stands, I'm leaning more towards the latter situation citing evidence from quick swap nerfs and the lightfoot nerf.

Yeah, it does seem so. The main problem I have with that method of balancing is that weapon costs are literally not an object or factor to them if their only intention was to win every game that they played in hunt. If Crytek were to balance to the competitive meta, the guns at the top tier would have to be exorbitantly priced (which further pushes it away from new player access) or the guns would have to be changed in other ways (like stat balance, handling, etc).

Assuming the better stratification of ELO would allow newer players to have better success, then one might argue a (let's make up some numbers) a 500 ELO player would win the same % of the time as a 1500 ELO player and would therefore take away the same bounty every game. Of course, this isn't wholly accurate as you could make the point that higher tier players are more efficient with accruing dollars with a counterpoint that this might be offset by spending more on utility/consumables.

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It's a hard balance and a problem without an easily obtainable answer. I'll not claim that I know how to fix it, but I think it might be worthwhile at looking to the philosophies of other game's approach to balancing.