Damn man, I played a huge number of hours and I never managed to unlock the Paladin, it was one of the few non DLC ultra-rare weapons I simply never unlocked. The RNG of the store was one thing I never enjoyed about ME3MP.
I never really stuck with any one gun for a long time, I got to a point where I would switch classes and weapons every few matches. Usually switch between power based classes and weapon based classes to keep things fresh. I think my favorite power based class was the Valkyrie followed closely by the Vorcha class with flamer and bloodlust soo mobile, but soo deadly.
This is my ultra-rare collection (everything else was maxed out except for Awoken Collector character)