It's really hard to have a rational discussion around powerup timers (or anything really) without addressing the elephant in the room. If we don't have a good, skill-based utility weapon with responsive base movement, all discussions about powerups are moot. The core issues with Halo bleed into everything else, and until we fix the core issues, we're just spinning our wheels.
With the current core Halo gameplay, I would disagree with you, because the powerups are too large of an advantage. With a better core, sure, dynamics in 1v1 would probably be better.