I hear ya. My first was (and still is) an energy/energy blaster. And while I didn't do anything to increase the natural knockback of several powers, I still managed to piss off the scrappers.
They sound like lame Scrappers. KB all you want, I'll just hop on over and smash them if they aren't defeated.
Yeah, really. KB was never that big of a problem for me and I primarily play scrappers.