Star Wars universe does have lasers of all scales and power levels.
Yet literally no one uses them well on a personal scale.
The Jedi (and Sith for that matter) imbue it with a power of magical stone, and then…use it as a saber.
To balance this stupidity, stormtroopers, clones and droids all use slow, non-continuous energy blasters. With actual lasers, they could insta-kill any Jedi, but they cannot, because otherwise the movie wouldn’t exist.
The actual answer is that faceless pawns make better canon folder villains because it’s less likely the audience will relate to them as actual people in the context of the narrative. The in-universe explanation is that faceless pawns are better foot soldiers for the empire because it’s less likely said empire will relate to them as actual people.