Now powers seem to just be a sort of mediocre side note.

Level them up more. I know that kits with the Assault Turret have access to the Omni-Link Turret upgrade which gives them +30% Recharge while standing near their turret. A lot of abilities have huge cooldown upgrades as well. +30%, +40%, and +50% recharge speeds aren't all that rare for rank 4/5/6 on abilities. Then you can get pretty sizable power boosts through passives, then you've got equipment, you've got a prestige trait that reduces recharge speeds, etc.

I don't think we'll ever seen throw on a 3 second cooldown like in ME3MP but 6 seconds sounds completely reasonable in the long-run, which is pretty good when you consider that all three abilities are on separate cooldowns.

The biggest thing is really just that the difference between a level 4 and a level 20 character in ME3 was maybe twice as powerful, whereas a level 4 vs a level 20 character in ME:A is likely going to be 3-4 times more powerful, possibly more. The upgrades are hugely back-loaded.