Some more play, some more observations.
Have the frequency of the drops changed? I have not seen a Mega-Plasma in days, where once I'd expect to see them in station inventories, dropped off ships, or in crates once per game at least. In fact, I'm mostly seeing lousy unmodded energy cannons these days. Crates don't seem worth the risk anymore... unless this is just Revenge of the Random Number Generator, and doesn't reflect a change.
The game has been incredibly stable for me with my Moto X and Android 5.1. other than one update breaking my save game (expected in a beta), I have had no crashes, and few bugs.
One bug I ran into was a targeting issue with a shield de-energizer. it worked fine, and then sort of got stuck, and always fired uselessly at a 30degree or so angle. Stopping the game, closing it out, and then restarting seemed to fix it.
Currently, I'm finding both missiles and rockets very very ineffective. They moved from my first picks to almost never picked if I have a choice. I'd prefer a modded projectile cannon with something that strips shields over the missiles. They're so slow that unless you have lots of them with burst, the enemy point defense just wastes them, and they're not great against fighters. Missile bombers suffer some of this, though their ability to hit vulnerable angles helps a bit. I think both missiles and rocket cannons cost too much given how well they function right now against point defense. Lasers on the other hand are gorgeous, and I find myself using them more than ever. I can stick with basic human laser cannons through most of a run, and do quite well. The effectiveness of the rocket weapons is probably about right, but they're way costly given their DPS against anything with point defense (which is everything).
Nuke cannons though, are just useless. They're the big newb trap on the gear list right now, possibly beaten by repair and regen drones, but only a little. Those slow nukes get wasted by point defense so easily and fire so slowly they hardly ever matter for anything but a brawler ship that jumps in right on top of an enemy, inside point defense range, and unloads - taking lumps, but hoping to kill the enemy before dying. Brawler ships are pretty fun, but I've found not an overall good strategy. For a goof, I used the quit game exploit to start out with mad scrap, and I loaded a capital ship up with gats and five nuke cannons. I got slaughtered within three systems of start. Nukes are sort of terrible.
Bolter drones are still king, even at their higher cost. Fighters are a good starter, as you can usually get three of them launched before leaving the starting system, but upgrading to bolter drones ASAP is never a bad idea. Cost is about right, I think. I played with laser drones, and they're alright, but I'm not seeing a huge advantage there over the cheaper fighters. Likewise, missile bombers are very pricey, have a slow regen, a low fleet size, and the missiles get eaten by the more effective point defense. In terms of DPS, I think they lag behind bolter drones pretty badly. They to be less limited at that price, or maintain the same limits and be cheaper.
I've been playing a challenge mode - trying to see how far I can get with a single Nightingale. I can get to the fourth galaxy on Easy, the third on Medium, but only the second on hard (where I was almost immediacy wasted by a flak cannon). It's a good challenge to play in, and really forces you to evaluate the weapons and tactics you use, swap them out regularly, and make careful decisions about the hanger you use. Bolster drones all the way for this mode of play. The numbers, nimbleness, and squad size beat everything else.
