is it just me who finds the big ships easier to fly than the small ones a lot of the time?.
Nah, same here . . . nice and slow wins the race. I'm the Slowpoke Rodriguez of pilots. (Ye know, Speedy Gonzalez's cousin, the one that never, EVER hurries. He appeared in one episode only, IIRC. Hilarious.)
On a more serious note (danger, Captain Obvious is entering the chat), it's of course up to personal preference and probably also habit. I hate flying big ships. Hate it, hate it,
hate it. Flying most of them is just like walking through molasses.
In my early career, I did some the usual stepping stones - Cobra III, Chief, the Kraits, then earned the rank for the Corvette, and that's what I stuck with for a long time as a combat oriented daily driver. Until I got so bored with flying the Corvette that I parked it and never flew it again. Most of the time I flew mediums after that, until Odyssey dropped - that got me into small ships again, and the Viper IV became my favorite ship and daily driver.
For a while I kept exploring in large ships - I had an exploration Anaconda which was incredibly boring but worked well, and I still adore my exploration Beluga (the Beluga is awesome to fly for such a behemoth), but again both got retired with Odyssey, and my go to explorer became the Dolphin.
Luckily I don't do hauling except a short stint when I was trying out colonisation, but I quickly realized I just can't stand the Cutter or the T-9, so I rather did two trips in a T-8 than one in either of them.
These days I am, of course, smitten with the Mandalay, but I am absolutely in love with the Cobra V. It is such a good ship. I am still hoping for a Viper MK.V, but I also keep saying the Cobra V is kind of if a Viper and the Cobra III had a giant baby. The Cobra V is becoming what the Viper IV was for me for a long time.