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I'm considering making a small for-fun army list with a Warpsmith, however I am not a fan of Power Axes (which is part of it's codex's profile, so no switching out for a sword/maul). However, he does have a Bolt Pistol as well. Reading the rulebook I see that:

"If a model has more than one Melee weapon, he must choose which one to attack with when he comes to strike blows – he cannot mix and match the abilities of several different Melee weapons. However, it’s worth remembering that if a model has two or more Melee weapons he gains +1 attack in close combat."

Since Bolt Pistols count as melee weapons, could I effectively choose to give up the S+1/AP2 profile of the Power Axe so that I don't sacrifice my initiative to 1, while still benefiting from the +1 to attack? In other words: if I'm assaulting a tank, I can use my Axe, but when attacking a weaker but higher than initiative 1 enemy, I could use my Bolt Pistol?

Thanks in advance!

Correct,
Thanks to the clause granting Pistols a different weapon profile during the Assault Phase, the Model has access to multiple Weapons with the Melee Type when it come time to strike blows.

You don't have access to melee weapons, but you do have access to artefacts, so you could change your pistol or the power axe to something else. You still keep the melta and flamer from the harness so loosing the pistol would probably be best.

Thanks guys! This helped a ton.

I wanted to try to take the Warpsmith as-is (+ Aura of Dark Glory), to keep his point cost relatively low; essentially I just wanted a couple of him to follow some big robots to fix as needed, so I was hoping to avoid taking the Black Mace or Murder Sword to keep my initiative high in close combat. I may do that in high point games, though!

Take the spineshiver blade for AP3 Daemon weapon with +1 initiative. Then you can use either and the power axe is still more effective against armour.