Pistols are by no means accurate weapons, i know most games portray them as scope-less sniper rifles, but that is not the reality of it, they have small barrels, the sight apeture is very short, and they do not have a stock or even a forward grip to steady your aim (well there do exist a few oddball examples, but it's not the norm).
And to make matters worse, their action and short barrels don't do good things for the recoil either.
I do feel RO overdid it a bit, the accuracy should have been a bit better than it was, but not by a whole lot, pistols are short range only weapons, their only advantage is their small size and light weight, they are handy little things you can easilly bring with you.
Likewise, pistol rounds do not sound like the end of the world when they are ignited, like you hear in hollywood movies, look at how small thease bullets are, and how little gunpowder there is actually room for inside thouse small casings..
Now imagine a firecracker that small, it probably woulden't sound very impressive now would it? There's just not enough powder in that small a package to make a big bassy "BOOOOOM!", it would be more like a small "Pop!" or "Crack!".
Well the same is true of a pistol round, there's just not enough powder in there to make a big "BOOOM!", pistols don't really sound like that.
