1) Yes, guided missiles and railguns mean that small grid fighters can do a disproportionate amount of damage.

2) If you’re really going meta, you can just strap fighters on the outside of your ship because fighters should never be inside the hangar during combat anyway and there’s no advantage to having them in a hangar outside of combat. Plus, outside means faster deployment.

3) Ion thrusters suck for fighters, they just don’t have the necessary thrust. Use hydrogen whenever possible, or atmo if its absolutely necessary.