I get tired of constantly examining stats and ammo types and carrying 8000 different types of ammo.... was thinking of going for energy weapons b/c there are only 3 or so main ammo types...

Are the guns, of which there seem far fewer "types," effective against all different foes? Mainly thinking of: Laser Pistol, Laser Rifle, Laser RCW (submachine gun), Plasma pistol, Plasma Rifle

Interested in people's experiences.

I have trouble taking down people in combat armour with a fully repaired Plasma Rifle, although, I'm only 60 or so Energy Weapons.

If you specialize in energy weapons then yes, they are very effective. By specialize I mean maxed out critical hit chance and nearly all the energy weapon related perks.

You can max charge and over charge the ammo at the bench, I'd guess they are the HP and AP equivalent.

Depends on the weapon, your perks, etc. Some Energy Weapons have high crit multipliers and high crit damage. Coupled with the energy crit perk you get later in the game, the energy challenge perk, finesse and possibly built to destroy, you're getting criticals more often than not. This results in their raw damage being many times higher than those of normal guns, comparable to unarmed.

The problem with most of the energy weapons you'll find at first is their very low damage per hit, but high DPS. This is very bad against high DT targets. But once you advance a bit in the game, you get access to things like the Q-35 Modular, Gauss Rifle, Plasma Caster and so on, which can dispatch most armored foes with ease.

Some Energy Weapons are incredibly powerful, and may be the most powerful weapons in the game.

My YCS/186 Gauss Rifle has 525 DPS, and can kill a normal Deathclaw in one shot.
The Pulse Gun, as far as I can tell, is a guaranteed one hit kill on any robot. I haven't had a chance to use it against Power Armor yet.
The Tri-Beam Laser Rifle is my third weapon. You can get it quite early in the game, and it's also quite powerful. Almost everything dies after one round of VATS.