Yep, I'd be somewhat surprised if we seen the next version before the end of April. When Steve is adding new features, as he is with 7.2, he normally playtests them for a while in his own campaign so he can see if they are relatively balanced.
As for the escape shuttle idea, I've been using something very similar to set up seed colonies due to not having yard space available for building proper colony ships.
Trojan-IV class Shuttle 500 tons 9 Crew 108 BP TCS 10 TH 19.2 EM 0
8000 km/s JR 1-50 Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 2/2/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 11.71 Years MSP 68 AFR 4% IFR 0.1% 1YR 1 5YR 14 Max Repair 64 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 4.62 months Spare Berths 0
Cryogenic Berths 400
J500(1-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 500 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 1
Fighter S-05 EP-80 Stealth(25%) Internal Fusion Drive (1) Power 80 Fuel Use 27.19% Signature 19.2 Exp 8%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres Range 26.5 billion km (38 days at full power)
S-00.2 TH-2 Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 2 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 2m km
S-00.2 EM-2.2 EM Sensor (1) Sensitivity 2.2 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 2.2m km
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
As I've been fitting all military ships of 10,000 tons or more with a boat bay per 10,000 tons that has been used for scout craft or boarding shuttles, it would be fairly trivial to swap over to carrying shuttles. I may do so for at least some of them as I've been finding my scout FAC's are more effective than the scout fighters.