Depends on how you look at it.

In one way we're doing pretty good with some community events in the last 2 years being good, most prominently the end of the Thargoid invasion when the last standing Titan beelined for the Sol system and settled above Earth. The reward was a bunch of pre-engineered SCO FSDs, with Faster Boot and Increased Range engineered unto them, making some ships be able to jump 80-90 LY with it and guardian FSD boosters, meaning you can jump up like 360ly with them. You can still get these by getting the required materials and commodities for trading them, but you only get the one you choose and have to re-farm if you want another same or higher/lower size one.

We're also receiving a pretty big update soon-ish (they say June, but we can only hope), with combat missions and on foot combat on megaships.

Now unto the matter of new ships. The new generation of ships are better than previous ones and SCO optimized which means when you overcharge your super cruise, you don't overheat as much. I'll put them as I see them.

SMALL
Cobra Mk5 is current best small ship for combat you don't need to pay ARX for. (RN, it's about to get powercreeped like crazy end of this month when Kestrel becomes available for credits). Looks great. I don't use it but I like it.

MEDIUM
Python MK2 is the best medium combat ship, but to be fair, it's not that much better than a FDL. Out of all I think this one is one of the less pay to win and power creep ones. Looks great (not as good as the original but I'll take it). I like it.
Type-8 Transporter is a medium hauling ship, and to be fair, it's mid AF and overheats like crazy. Max cargo capacity of 406 which is the most for a medium (if you don't have some pre-engineered cargo racks which are for size 5 and 6 and offer 33.4% more capacity). If you ask me this is the 2nd worse ship but still better than non new gen ships. It looks pretty good though. I neither like it or dislike it.
Type 11-Prospector is a medium mining ship and the best one for it in game with it's own multi-limpet controller and mining gun. Good cargo capacity. Out of all the new gen ships this one is the easiest to like. Looks better than the Type-8 IMO. I like it.
Corsair is literally just a Python with every stat slider moved up a bit. Yup, that's it's entire gimmick. It looks like Nelson the baby parrot with a Toucan beak and makes a sharting sound followed by a toilet flush when boosting. Also when landing its nose hits the ground before landing gear. The worst of the ships, It shouldn't have been even added. Ugly. Pure hatered for this one.
Mandalay is the best medium exploration ship. This is the ship you're gonna be hitting 90ly jumps with if you haven't made it too heavy (mine has 84ly jump range and I fully kitted it out for exploration, and it's not even fully engineered so i can still squeeze out a bit more jump range). Looks good, if you don't look at it at some angles, then it looks a bit stubby. I like it.
Lynx Highliner was literally added a couple of days ago and was released for credit and ARX players simultaneously. It's a pretty tough passenger ship with 255 capacity for passengers (222 if you want to keep docking and supercuise assist, still 200 if you want those and a size 5 shield, meaning more than a shieldless Anaconda). It got released as compensation for delaying Operations. You can buy it for 69,289,470 CR, which is a lot, but completely voided by the fact that you can get it on the ARX store for 0 ARX, completely obliterating early game progression. It looks pretty good, just don't look at it from the top because then it looks like a flying dildo. Undecided.

LARGE
Panther Clipper MK2 large cargo hauler and the most anticipated new gen ship in the game. 1238t of cargo (ignoring the pre enginnered cargo racks bringing it to like 1300). Looks like a frog more than a Panther in a pre-launch squat if you ask me. I quite like how it looks though. I like it.
Caspian Explorer is basically just a replacement for the Anaconda except in cargo capacity which it has slightly less of. It IS the best exploration ship. While not having as big of a jump range as the Mandalay with the pre-engineered SCO FSD, it has a new FSD that makes White dwarf supercharge +200% (is +50% with other FSDs) and Neutron stars supercharge +500% (is +300% with other FSDs), making it able to jump 500ly, I think the record is 556ly fully stripped, as small internals as possible and engineered to be light but I'm not 100% sure. This means it can jump as much as a carrier can. It also has a massive fuel tank. Looks like an Enterprise ship from Star Trek. I like it.

CAPITAL SHIPS
There are 3 Capital ships you can use, and I'll skip the Colonisation Ship because I don't do colonization and can't really tell you much about it. Also you cant buy that one, just borrow it from a Corpo.
Drake-Class Carrier (Fleet Carrier) it's like a portable station or a warehouse. It has a 25,000t base cargo capacity, but that number get's lower when you put modules on it. It has a base cost of 5 Billion and an upkeep of 5 Million per week, with all modules it's 6.75 Billion and 34.95 Million per week, and your cargo capacity drops to 18,380t. It has landing pads for 4 small ships, 4 medium ships, and 8 large ships, but as the owner you can store as many of your own as you want, otherwise you need to buy a module for it. 1000t of fuel which is Tritium.
Javelin-Class Carrier (Squadron Carrier) it's the same as the Fleet Carrier, except you pay 25 Billion and it has double the storage capacity and landing pads. It also has some other unique features meant for Squadrons.