How about:

Weapons
Mass(This can represent how fast your ship can accelerate)
Armor
Agility(The menuverability rate for the ship)

If we can have a ship that will accelerate at an insane rate and have a very slow agility, I'm pretty sure this game will be a little better since its not in its testing staged anymore.

And another idea: How about making the guns do chain fire instead firing all of them at once?

This probably isn't going to happen because the game engine uses the mass and shape/size of the ship to determine the angular acceleration (which is what I'm pretty sure you're calling agility). The way it could be done is give a normal engine a very low torque, but I doubt the devs would do it, because it wouldn't make much sense, and it'd be pretty annoying for game play to have a bunch of ships that could dodge or aim, but not both.

It is possible to make the weapons chain fire as it is now, at least if I understand your meaning of chain fire.

Weapons auto-chain-fire once you run out of energy. IE: If you have two tachys on group 1, they fire together until you run out of energy. Then they chain fire at a slower rate.

Along the same vein a thought I had (not for right now obviously but more "down the road") is that since each ship now has its own specific engine, why not vary the top speeds of each ship a little. Is there something sacred about the number 200 m/s? What if a ragnarok engine had a top speed of 214 m/s? What if a Centurion engine had more thrust but a top speed of 179 m/s? I know each ship uses one of the five engines we had in the old universe, but as long as engines are going to be ship-specific having some variance from ship to ship would be an interesting thought.

That idea I like Phaser...

Yes. I like it as well...

I think its been suggested before, but only now fits properly. It would add a heap more variety to the game.

I'd love to see:
A valk capable of 250ms in short bursts (engine drain would be tweaked to allow maybe 10-20 seconds at top speed with a FC battery. This would be an interceptor, no good for long range trips.

A Maud with one small port, less armour, and a 230ms top speed. This would be a highspeed hauler.

A Rag with 4 large ports and a heap more armour, but a top speed of 160ms. This would be a support ship, packed with swarms.

I hate to change the subject but I have one more fun idea:

How about naming your ship after when you purchase it?

Example:
When you purchase a ship, you can name it to something like: "The Exalibur". Usually by default, the ship is named to "No Name".