So I've been playing 0.5a and enjoying for the most part. I've had very little success in getting into the campaign yet - generally what happens is I get overconfident once I have two or three destroyers and go after something bigger, only to have my brainless minions either go coward on me and refuse to fight, or go charging off alone into the main concentration of enemy ships instead of following me (and their assigned target) who's off to the side. Because of that, I've not earned enough yet to pick up my own destroyer or anything larger, but I've still been having fun.
1 - all mounts as omni small/medium/large. If I manage to get my hands on some advanced energy weapons, it'd be nice if I had more then one or two ships that even equip the things.
2 - Ability to choose your starting ship at the time of choosing your portrait and name. I've restarted several times to get away from ship classes I'm not fond of. (Brawler or the frigate with a LRM mount are... non-optimal.)
3 - This is more of a wish, but while I like the ability to customize, I'd like even more options. Like being able to salvage the engine array from an advanced ship and building it into my own, or coming across a set of more advanced shield emitters on the market and snapping them up. These effects are somewhat handled by hull modifications, but more customization options would be nice.
4 - Starter ships need more cargo space. While it doesn't matter right now as cargo limits are ignored, some of the destroyers have next to no cargo space and would necessitate frequent returns to space stations to sell the one item they have room to salvage.