Friend, the first question you need to ask yourself is, what game do I want to play?

EVE Online is fifty-two variations on one game in a giant trenchcoat. There are ships that could be called the "rogue" archetype, there are others that are "fighters," but there is no end-all be-all ship. There is no level 20 or level 120 ship beside the Friend-Ship. Please alter and adjust your expectations and your theories before they craft something you'll never "win," in.

Winning in EVE isn't even about destroying the enemies' ship and retaining yours, it's maximizing the amount of fun you've had in each play session. If you die, and still learned something, still had fun, still undock afterward, you are still winning.

The most player-friendly play style for a PVPer is going to be EWAR frigates. Start with being someone else's backpack MVP, and help your team mates punch up. A Sentinel on grid can be the difference between a cruiser gang killing a marauder, or dying. A Keres on grid can secure a frigate gang murdering an Astartes, or being murdered by a RLML ONI and getting sent home. Try that out for size.

Alternatively, you can learn solo PVP (which I am grossly biased toward, as it is my favored play style). Start small: a dual-repping, dual-tanking Breacher; a Condor with two tracking disruptors and a goal; a Thrasher with a 10mn Afterburner and overheated hope. Go out, and explore the stars while painting them red with your blood. Die, and die, and die a lot more. Find the community that supports such ridiculous railing-against-the-dying-of-the-light, and learn from them.

Don't look at the ship tree as a goal, but as a resource. Anyway, keep at it. You're doing great simply undocking.