Notice the amount of weapon accessories across the different costumes? B.J.'s knives, Slash's spikes and blades, Ranger's Battle Axe, Death Knight sword and Nine Inch Nails, and so on... In other words, plenty of stuff which isn't practical for fast-paced battles. For meleé weapons, the Gauntlet ends up being a much practical weapon than, for example, B.J.'s chainsaw. It can be activated on-the-go and instantly rips out through your enemy, unlike the Chainsaw. In fact, across the Arena Shooter history, there are only twoexamples of Chainsaws appearing in a weapon roster, and not only weren't used at all, but hasn't appeared since then in any other Arena Shooter.
It's fitting that the update that brought Capture the Flag is the same that brought Athena, a Quake II-based character which uses a grappling hook, considering that the early iterations of the mode (as an official Game Mod by Threewave) had the aforementioned grapple as an exclusive weapon.
