I have never enjoyed those old times (before engineering) where a lot of things were (apparently) better.
Some things were better, some worse. I do think a lot of people tend to look at the past through rose tinted glasses, but there is no denying that many of most common complaints with combat today didn't exist before Engineers. We got more customization options, but lost a lot of the more subtle aspects that defined the feel of the ships and, ironically enough, some practical variety as certain 'options' became essentially mandatory to stay competitive.
Growing up with charge enhanced distributors and dirty drives I became an FA OFF boost sperg.
Even I find myself falling into these sorts of patterns when I use PA and rails, though with less FA OFF (as I'm a HOTAS user and even with a good stick and solid sensitivity slopes it's hard for me to compete with relative mouse's ability to alternate from rapid manuvering to precise aim without flight assist stabilizing things). It's what the current game mechanisms incentivise and I can hardly fault anyone for doing what works.
But I must disagree on the trivialized distance management, because there is a lot more to it than damage drop off of course.
My complaint was an over simplification perhaps, but managing ones distance to target has become much more difficult and erratic, with generally greater ranges as a result. Longer range combat does reduce the importance of maneuver in fights, especially between vessels of similar performance, because there is less one can do to evade attacks or stay out of an opponent's cone of fire. This is more an issue related to thrusters (peak velcocities increasing faster than acceleration and linear increases to rotational rates on top) and boost frequency than long range weapons, but long range weapons are a factor. IMO, we have a very poor situation when average initial encounter distance, typical sensor range, and weapon ranges are all too similar in most scenarios.
You raised some interesting points in your last section there. But I think it does not require the big nerf bat to balance module sniping. It needs to be harder or less successful the farther you are from your target. At the moment it is the opposite due to the microgimbal effect. A solution could be to decrease the breach chance from 3km onwards or to reduce the microgimbal effect. But IMO module sniping needs to remain a viable strategy during combat which rewards skillfull players.
I feel the ability to go after certain modules to achieve specific effects or gain victory without having to grind through all hull integrity adds a great deal of depth to the game. The issue I have is with the inversion of difficulty you mention, where hitting specific modules becomes easier with hitscan weapons at range, as well as the power plant nearly always being the obvious target on most setups.
Since hit scan weapons other than rails (lasers) tended to have both poor penetration depth, poor breach chance/damage, severe damage falloff, and were less effective against hulls in general, module sniping typically required close in use of projectile weapons. Gimbals were favored, but also had more downsides, relatively speaking (two chaff launchers were enough for a whole fight, and silent running could be maintained longer) and it took real ability to put stock velocity fixed cannon, PA, or MCs into a specific module. Before the ascendancy of rails (which came with their most recent ammunition buff and the extremely potent engineering effects), penetration depth mattered; with combat vessels tending to have their power plants in the back, they were often not the best target, at least in 1v1s. I used to favor attacks on the distributor against most federal ships for example, or on the life support module of those ships that had them placed near or immediately behind the cockpit as attacking them would usually result in a canopy breach. Sometimes it's an advantage that almost everyone immediately goes for the PP now, but such situations are more the exceptions that prove the rule.
)