It's bad, but it's not as bad as BSN likes to make out. Someone (Randall/ark/Rusty maybe?) got it in a Gold randomiser game I was in quite recently, and they did OK with it.
I don't know about Gold, but ark got it on a vorcha on a platinum randomised game and wished he didn't. I Have have taken it in a common weapons only game on platinum, on a Cerberus adept, and it went ok but like ark I ended up just spamming powers to do most of the damage.
I agree the hornet is more disappointing, considering it's a rare gun. I wouldn't like to rely on either of them as my main source of damage though, unless I was taking a Tsoldier.
For me the overall worst weapon is the spitfire, as it has the sad distinction of being the only weaker gun that you can't put on a Turian soldier and make it shine. That speed reduction cripples it IMO, and the ok damage just doesn't make up for it. And especially seeings as it's an ultra rare...
Close second for me would be the raptor. I'm not sure there's really a bad shotgun or pistol overall- there's weaker ones overall but you can make all of them work on Gold at least.