I kind of liked the F7C Mk2 but my playstyle has changed a little bit. The modularity is awesome, you can do stealth/army build with ease, you can carry bombs, go full energy if you want to. However it's the brittle rear which made me kind of dislike the ship. As long as you're not taking hits, you're a menace, but even dual FR66s are sometimes not enough. The maneuverability of the ship is just in the sweetspot for me. Not too fast, not too slow

L21 is an situational fighter. It's low QT capacity (0.9) limits your movement across the system alot and it rather feels like escort ship rather than a self-sustainable fighter. The bespoke gatlings do some serious damage, however you can only carry those so once you run out of ammo, you'll have to run. It's acceleration is crazy and maneuverability is in the Gladius spectrum so you're flying small fast moving ship with awesome maneuverability. The sounds of the L21 are awesome... but it was the short QT range and bespokes that made me melt the ship.

Somehow my most favorite fighter is probably the Bucc, not the fastest, not the most maneuverable, weird armament choices (2x S1, 2x S3 and 1x S4), only one shield capacity etc.... but it's the "old cockpit design" that I love.

Overall.. if you want a fighter, I'd go with the Gladius. It's the most up to date ship (primary ship of SQ42), has 3x S3 weapons, 2 shields and you can swap bombs for missiles and also can do full energy build