Well, I see your point but... personal choices.
I do have 3 small beams on my "shard chieftain", they are so powerful they make an "on demand heatsink" but that would be overkill here, plasma heat is easily managed and requiring a heatsink only for 3+ gauss shots is OK.
I'm letting flak aside as I try not to encounter swarms - there is something my brains just don't compute about FAoff, I tried it many times and I just end up spinning around within seconds. Maybe later.
Since this build has proven consistent enough for me to kick a Medusa's * with neither ease nor pain, I'll consider recycling those 3s and what to do with them when I master plasma heart shooting enough to tackle a Hydra... Maybe later².
Yes I've been using trailing sights since the day I discovered their existence in one of Mechan's videos.
I like scanners because for zero effort basic scans give so much info : variant, heart, hull and shield state, interceptor's whereabouts. Plus a 10s orbit scan is not a big deal, then subtargeting allows aiming at hearts through the bug's "thrust blur" and partly through plasma dust, and finally hearts not glowing anymore made aiming at them uneasy.