The phantom is a scrap ship that was only designed and balanced with the idea of "reductionism." That is, making it worse in literally every way to the MK2 in every actual gameplay scenario except for a single number. Sure the jump range is bigger. But it'll do everything worse than the Krait. So there's literally no point in it existing.
You could not be more wrong. Take your time to outfit both on the Coriolis beta page and carefully compare the stats. The Phantom can be almost 100 m/s faster than the MKII in full combat outfit and has far superior pitch/roll/yaw. You can also go absolute nuts with what you put into those four hardpoints, size 7 plant and distributor have you more than covered.
Yes you lose one hardpoint and the fighter bay and get slightly less internal space, but it's still a good ship.