Also, I forgot to post this earlier, but (I think) the damage of Ballistic Blades scales with how close the enemy is to you. So if you take Damage, you're really only getting the full damage bonus if the enemy is very close. If you take Explosive Blades, the damage of the explosion is fixed, regardless of range. So you could end up doing significantly more damage by taking Explosive Blades.
I always run the BatSol with the Raider, the way God intended, so I'm always CQC anyway.
Having said that, I absolutely think you're right, if enemies are farther away BB's seem to do less damage, I assume b/c the damage is the same per "blade" and more blades miss the farther you are from the target.