One of the bigger things holding these towers back though is the fact that they do last only about 45 seconds.
Low damage be damned, they really need to last a lot longer.
Even at low damage, you can still use them to "Bridge the gap" between some towers that are outside of reach of each other, pulling truly powerful towers otherwise unlinked into the battle, but the limited duration makes this all but impossible to use as a viable strategy.
Likewise, as others have said, you can't get more than a small handful up at a time. Not even close to the limit of 5.
I say, they should remove the duration on the towers, then start tweaking damage up from there. They can still be used as a chain to connect into the main tower supply, but not if they can't last forever.