It appears you misunderstood what I meant by *from the T6/Keelback on up* - that statement effectively removes the bulk of the small ships, which don't really do much of anything all that well compared to other options available. They all can, however, Explore just fine, albeit missing some non-essential (but worth having) toys.
The T-10. Really? That's the first thing you put down?
The Corvette - Perhaps you aren't aware that it can haul around 600T. Crappy Trader, that. The Corvette is one of the most versatile ships in the game, man.
Alliance Ships - all 3 can do all things in the game at a decent level, though they are a bit gimped in Trade, coming in at less than 150T. I don't consider this to be Combat-focused, regardless of the restricted slots. They are quite flexible platforms.
The point, again, is that there are only a few ships in the game with a very clear bias towards Combat and they were added a long time ago. The number of hardpoints or restricted slots is meaningless if the ships added since that time are capable of doing Trade or Exploration at a reasonable level, and they are.
People need to stop braying about *another Combat ship,* because it just isn't true, now matter how much they want it to be. Frontier hasn't designed a purpose-specific ship of any type in a long time.
Riôt
They were designed and wedged into the lore as combat ships. *shrug* I'm not sure why you made arguments I already put into my own post. They even call the Cutter a Warship, but I left that omitted for argument sake. You can do anything in any ship, that point is a bit moot.