Even Lucas, flannel-wearing, violence-dislike hippy-type that he is, made laser blasts, as opposed to beams. Bolts, bursts, blasts, bullets - these are the properly phallic projectile products of manly weapons. Star Trek phasers stunned or vaporized, so they could get away with beams (some versions looked more like remote controls than proper guns) and that was some sixties-future-utopia that looks to have been somewhat neutered anyway.

For that visceral satisfaction, you need destruction with a single trigger pull, not a continuous beam. That latter is how Protoss weapons work. Terran stuff just blasts out in shots or bursts.