On the hips is very aesthetically pleasing. And unique, I don't think you'll find many other people using that style.
It's fine like that, I'm sure nobody will say too much. I just wanted to voice that.

I honestly love starting off with boring weapons. It makes the cool weapons that much cooler. So I'm completely okay starting off with a boring handgun if I know I'll get something cooler down the road.
I can has laser bow?

One thing I hate in games is when enemies just stand still while you pound on them. I would prefer it if they were always attacking, but you had some way to deal with it.
For instance, maybe big groups are made out of weak enemies, whose attacks you can shrug off without being stunned, and are in turn easy to stun. So you can be aggressive with them and treat them like canon fodder while dodging the actually tough enemy of the group.
But I don't think anyone is going to look twice if you do the Kingdom Hearts way of have them just stand there.