Right now, every ship in battle has one role. The stats mean how good those are in that one role. What if there would be multiple roles? Maybe Anaconda would have difficulties to hit Viper, and Viper could destroy modules from it. Maybe Viper is not able to destroy the Anaconda, or maybe breaking the canopy etc.
Then Anaconda will need someone against the Viper, because it does not want to lose the modules.
In my opinion, Anacondas should be armed with turrets, and with fixed only able to shoot other bigger ships. Else the PvP is always about fixed weapons, and is not in balance. Anaconda should be way slower and less Agile. Clipper should probably be less agile as well, it might be op
Balancing wing vs wing, not just 1 vs 1. Rock-Paper-Scissors. More variety to the game play. And if you ask from me, it would be far more realistic, far less MMORPG than the current system we have. None tries to destroy a tank with a rifle, right?
You can continue thinking the possibilities from this. I think there are plenty. Still, I am not really hoping too much for this kind of idea. I think it would be better, it is just that it would need huge changes -> So probably not going to happen, and so we will probably always have this ~arcade model.
CQC is a bit better in teams, not as chaotic. But true, disengaging is very difficult.
Open play... You are probably right in this. SCB are too strong atm. and hull is too weak.
SCB in general is a good idea. You are losing internal space for stronger shield. Right now there is nothing competitive vs SCB -> So everyone must have SCB stack.
SCB should not be defining the battles, as those are atm.
If you want to make a pirate ship, you are definitely going to have hard time against bounty hunters. Because you simply need your internals for cargo and possibly for other nice things to have. This should be considered when balancing.
Hull should be the one that takes far more beating than the shields. But already said, and probably in multiple places.
For me it feels like that Python is not competitive in PvP? Speed is normally rather important and it does not have much? There is no way to escape? No Masslock either? I have not tried with assist off to be honest, that is enough to make it a good one?
For PvP pirates, clipper vs python? I think that all would pick the clipper, no?
Clipper with maxed thrusters is probably a bit too agile atm. Could take a hit from a small nerf-hammer
Small ship for pirating, cobra?
Large ship for pirating, Clipper?
Medium ship for pirating, there is none? It would be nice to have here one, or am I missing something?
I admit that I might be wrong, but... For me Python is very multi-purpose, because it has so huge flaws as well. Python is probably the only multi-purpose in the game that is actually a multi-purpose

Not really good in anything, but not bad either.