I can solo just fine with my blaster. It might be on a lower setting than my scrapper, but most things die before they get into melee range and the ones that do usually don't stay around for long.
In teams, esp. with a good tank I can really let loose with the AoEs and pump out more dps than a single target scrapper - ooh look at all the orange numbers - and I don't have a nova power (AR/Dev).
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
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1. Risk vs Reward... Clearly blasters do far worse out of this than scrappers. I do mean clearly. Everybody I know who has played both will agree with this, no matter how skilled you are.
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This is the case 95% of the time. The only situation where I've found it isn't is sometimes verses Nemesis on large teams. The blasters can keep back, the tank[s] are fine. The scrappers can have a hard time as they get AoE spill from the tanks. That's the only time when range is defence.
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2. Solo vs Team. To my mind, the penalty for being easy to solo should be you are less valuable to teams (not by a lot mind). This clearly is the case for fenders, trollers, and tanks vs scrappers, but there dosent seem to be any meaningful difference in value when a team chooses a scrapper or blaster for damage output. And yet, scrappers are far easier to solo than blasters.
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That is because most blasters shy away from AoEs. A Fire/Fire blaster on the right team will do more damage than most scrappers. Scrappers suffer from having less powers, each of the powers is lower Brawl index but lower recharge and end cost. However scrappers do about 20% more base damage ( including criticals ). If you ignore AoEs the only edge I can see blasters having is that they have access to both Aim and Build Up and Nukes.
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The whole thing is pretty screwed up if you ask me. Now I may get flamed by a load of protesting scrappers but please only do so if you have actually played both scrappers AND blasters. 
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I have 2 high level scrappers:
A Dark/Dark who hasn't teamed with a blaster for ages because he is on a [ir]regular superteam.
A Spines/Regen.
The Spines/Regen is clearly too good. I think the problem is that Spines is too good for AoEs and the ability to pick up an extra one at level 47 just seals the deal. He has 2 cones, a PbAoE and a damage aura. On top of that he has a decent single target attack chain. Spines also has some of the best secondary effects in the game. DoT, -recharge, -speed. That's the same as Fire and Ice blaster sets combined.
The Dark on the other hand only has a Cone AoE attack and has endurance problems.
I have 2 blasters: Ice/Dev and Fire/Fire. The Fire/fire can pull off about the same devastation as the Spines scrapper on the right team. There is a huge level difference though.
The Ice/Dev and the Dark/Dark are quite comparable too. The Ice can do a bit more AoE damage. Both have control, the scrapper probably has a touch more. They are about the same level.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Thanks for the insight!
From your rather considerable experience, it seems the damage that blasters vs scrappers do is equivical.
And yet blasters face more risk?
Forgive me if I misintepret, but your experience seems to give weight to me feeling that the scrapper/blaster thing is pretty broken.
Blasters have the option of doing damage from range, out of range of a rampaging Bosses/GM's/AVs PBAoEs. Most Scrappers with the possible exception of an oddly built Spines/Body Mastery Scrapper will do poor damage in prolonged ranged combat. You won't see a Broadsword Scrapper hoversniping... 
Blasters in general are better at burst damage than Scrappers, with far higher BI blaps, nukes and the Aim/Buildup combo. This makes them theoretically better at taking out a nasty enemy quickly providing said enemy cannot kill them first. They also tend to be better at AOE damage than scrappers on teams (spines being the exception to the rule, but even they can't 'nuke', and Fire Tanks can generally kill herds better).
Blasters tend to do higher damage to mobs than Scrappers in the 40-50s because with the exception of Assault Rifle, Blasters do not do purely S/L damage.
I'd have to say that in general Scrappers fit into their role as Boss-Killers or psuedo tanks, whilst Blasters are AOE damage dealers and ranged damage specialists. Naturally you get some variation in the ATs, Spines Scrappers are better at AOE damage, and Electric Blasters are better at controlling mobs. This comes at a tradeoff: my Katana Scrapper is much more survivable and better at killing single targets than a Spines Scrapper, but cannot do the same AOE damage. I would not expect to be able to do Blaster-level AOE and Ranged damage and be as survivable as a Scrapper, the only thing that I've seen that comes close is an Eclipsed Double-Mired WS or a Human-form PB making full use of Cosmic Balance.
I'm afraid that to my mind the ATs are WAI. You can always take the Force Mastery epic pool, after all... 
Possibilities:
-Depending on what lvl you are, you may've outlevelled your enhancements.
-The mob you're talking about may've been all bosses/lieuts, or the majority anyway.
-The mob in question did damage to you that you had no resistance to (eg, they may've been doing Energy, and you could be /Invul)
-You may've misred the mob's level
-You may not have seen all the enemies in the mob
-You had no toggles on
Quite a few more, but those are the main possibilities.
Fair points.
I would kind of agree with them if blasters where actually AoE kings rather than having the potential to be AoE Kings.
At the moment all i see is ice and energy blasters who seemed determined to survive at all costs, by taking and using single target attacks. heh, thats their choice I suppose and i cant blame them.
In my world, the game mechanics would mean work this way:
The TARGET of an AoE takes 120% of the damage and is aggro'd.
The "SPlashed" enemies take 80% of the damage and ignore this for the purposes of aggro.
If something like this was put into place, we would have a proper risk vs reward system and a return to AoE users.