Very true. But for a simple (in terms of combat) game like Cthulhu, it made sense. And it does give a very very good baseline to work from.
By enforcing impailing (I would limit this to first round in a burst, as in the rules), and criticals, you enable almost any round to not only take big hulking types down, but to kill them.
I've been toying with the idea that criticals are auto death in the head and chest, but for NPCs... kindof a toned down mook rule.
Adding special rules for round types, etc., would cover most variation. For example, the 4.6 x 30mm round used in the new MP7 PDW. Its a small and light round (For those of us in the states, the bullet is .177 cal., the same as many air rifles). Because of this the actual standard damage should be low. The round has excellent armor penetration though. On a special, I would allow three rolls of the dice for damage, similar to the way a rapier impales in RQ.
Other options might be impaling for jacketed rounds, and nothing special for unjacketed. Not sure about hollow points and the like though.
The extremely long winded point being that the current tables can be tweaked for better real world performance, and left alone for the light games.
SDLeary