I am completely unsure as to the feasibility of this, but here goes:
Description: You are of course familiar with the item descriptions when you bring an item into your hand. You see 'stone bricks', 'mining laser', 'mining drill', etc. I would propose that instead of having the "Laser Mode: Super-Heat" and similar messages in the chat window, that the mode would be stored in the item in such a way that the Minecraft engine would recognize it and simply bring up a new description.
So if you are in "Long-Range" mode, you would see "Mining Laser: Long Range" when you bring it to hand. No more cycling through. On changing the mode, it would lower (like batteries do when uncharging, and as the tools do when one it uses charge-pads) and then you'd have "Mining Laser: Horizontal" in your hand. It would just be a bonus that the entire motion would look like you lowered the laser to adjust it. The charge on the tool, of course, would be preserved.
The information must already be there somewhere. It would be a matter of making Minecraft key off it.
As I said, this may not be currently possible. But I think it would be a definite plus.
Thanks for reading!