QFE

The last thing you want is get an awesome weapon and then spend your next gaming day training said weapon on greys / greens to get skill ups

~QTM

Most cases I have see is that rare weapons will be better DPS than bare fists up to the level of the item . e.g. Dread Wind's Claws would be better dps up untill it's item level of 15 then you would see its DPS as a negative vs. bare handed.

I can't say with certainty as I have only had a couple of rare in my toons lifetime since release

~QTM

You can check your DPS on your character sheet (when you hover your mouse over "main hand" or "off hand" you see the DPS in the tooltip window). Light weapons like handwraps and knuckles have 5% critical, just like unarmed. So if the DPS is higher with weapons then without weapons, it is worth it. Especially because weapons have mods on them most of the time.
Just fool around a bit with different weapons, and check your DPS. Then you can chose what you like, and what fits your style. For a lvl 16, handwraps/knuckles/ulak/claws with 12+dps will probably make a difference over unarmed.