To be specific, it's not representing those things themselves but a way of projecting what would happen if those elements were more exclusively glorified. Klingons are a culture in which martial strength and honour are culturally glorified. Ferengi are a culture in which greed is not just present or prominent, but specifically glorified. Each one takes a concept, raises its value to max and then a society is built around that value. And then the Captain, as embodiment of enlightened liberalism, meets that culture and comes to terms with it.

Wellllll... There is the matter of the ethnicity of every single actor who plays a Ferengi.

And a lot of the actors playing them are Jewish

I would think the ears were their most pronounced feature.

I know I know… we’ll make their EARS big!!

Federation phasers aren’t weak. The federation just prefers to stun people rather than vaporize them. Remember when Data used his phaser to shutdown that power grid? Or the time they vaporized rock with their phasers?

I've never seen a klingon disruptor pistol do that. Have you? or Cardie, or any one else's (though there was that time Quark was trying to sell some shoulder fire artillery...)

we don't know what kind of range or power they really have. Just like how their starships aren't warships, but they out class most other faction's warships.the other factions don't hide what they are though. (and the kind of firepower that can take out damns from miles away is simply unneeded in any battlefield at that level of accessibility.)