When I first started you got to keep any weapons you found on the battlefield for the next round. So as a guy with 0 looms it was a great way to use a more powerful weapon or to just experiment with different gear. But it had some bug that made it so you didn't pay upkeep for the previous round or something so they removed it. This made the rounds play out just a little more boringly and unnecessarily weakened guys without looms. Think you could drop the weapon before the end so you spawned with normal gear, so that wouldn't be a problem.
So bring it back if the bugs can be fixed please. Its not a case of making the winning team much stronger since looms are everywhere now anyway, the only people who benefit are those with no weapon looms, which is fair imo. You should only spawn with the weapon in your hand though so you can't drop one for your team, and you only spawn with that and have to pay upkeep for it. Feeling like you have to use the same weapons all the time just because they are your only looms also gets quite boring, especially with melee multiclass