I agree with you plague! Its called a cone of fire. You shoot.. it lands anywhere in a circle which gets BIGGER the farther away they are. Therefore, you want as much of the alien as possible in the cone. Sometimes you can get TWICE as much alien in range at the cost of someone's foot. I think thats worth it.
Also, to the above evo thing... you kinda contradicted yourself there. If 190 damage is delt to a 1 evo victim, the one who did the 100 gets it. If 146 damage is done to a 2 evo victim, the two who attacked first get it.
I was under the impression that you could get evo fractions... like getting .6 for doing 1/3rd of the damage to a Mass Driver... but it doesnt show up till you get a complete one.