Honestly the weirdest thing about the FDL getting buffed was that this was during a time when Frontier was especially infamous for its nerf everything, no fun allowed attitude. The FAS used to offer it some decent competition but the original FDL with its class 5 plant, worse handling and heat management was already the meta PVP ship pre-buff. Balance tweaks just seemed to get applied inconsistently. Note that they didn't extend this powerplant buff to the Vulture, another combat specialist released at the same time and similarly power-restricted. Or how they nerfed the Python's shields/speed/handling on the grounds that it was supposed to be a freighter, despite the hardpoints and distributor and its common use as a warship by NPCs suggesting otherwise.