In order to stop the respawn spam one simply can add a cooldown. The more tries in a short amount of time the (exponentially) longer it takes to spawn. And/or a spawn table degrader, the more respawns in a short period of time the lower the chance one spawns with a weapon.
For me more realism would include a random pick out of a pool of certain items. So every time you start your starting gear will be different. If this includes pistols, fine by me (sometimes you have'em, sometimes you don't).