Actually, I said "top tier" in a year and a half, not T5. If in a year and a half they finally have the T6 ship, I want the Steamrunner to be one of them. NOT the akira. I don't care about the Akira.

Actually I agree with the position "we have too many T5 ships". A lot of them should be re-classified, like the Excel to T4.

Ultimately it would be better if the game would handle different ship tiers more gracefully. The differences between the ships are currently way too large to really do that, though, and mostly this is a problem due to the vast gains in BO powers over the tiers. You start with 3 and move up to 12, and these 12 powers are also overall stronge rthan the 3. In addition, the game seems to "nerf" powers based on ship tier as well, e.g. a Tier 5 ship using Science Team 2 heals more than a Tier 2 ship using Science Team 2. (I think it was mancom that noticed this a while back.)

These differences makes it impossible run Tier 3 and Tier 5 ships alongside effectively in an STF, Fleet Action or PvP. What easily kills a Tier 3 ship is a small bump for a Tier 5 vessel. If you wanted to use some "weights" to balance the differences, you would get ridicilious numbers that only work if everyone is playing "nicely" (for example no one is using strong AOE powers form his Tier 5 ship, and the VAs in Tier 3 ships don't start loading up Mark XI Tri-Cobalts.)

If Cryptic could fix these issues, then we might not need Tier 5 refits at all. Sure, a Tier 3 ship would still be weaker than a Tier 5 ship, but it would also not to be expected to work as effectie as a Tier 5 ship (meaning tha enemy scaling would account for the lower level, and that in PvP Arena, killing a Tier 3 vessel earns less points than killing a Tier 5 one.)

I agree this isn't a priority, but the place of the ship in the game is kind of odd. It's much bigger than the equivalent cruiser for that tier and, in other ways just seems more like a small cruiser than an escort. I think that's what it was in Starfleet Command III.

From the STO official site :

The Akira Class was designed to serve as a heavy gunship and carrier to protect space stations and ships devoted more to exploration than firepower. Created in between the development of the Sovereign and Galaxy classes, the Akira incorporates those elements from both designs best suited to a carrier ship.

There needs to be a T5 Akira with fighters. I wouldn't even mind paying for it as a retrofit in the C-Store, and available via Emblems. (The fighters should have to be replenished via energy credits.)

I'm all for a T5 Akira. More ships = more variety. Wouldn't it be cool if it had a Chain Reaction Pulsar module as a special ability?

...

And I'm for a general ship upgrade system that would allow any ship to advance to the top tier.

If you want "variety", that's the way to go.

And if someone wants to fly a T5 NX-class, he's perfectly welcome to it.

Except just any ship has no business being T5

Connies don't belong as T5, neither do Miranda's NX class ships or Olympic class ships.
The Akira is one of the few exceptions, a ship that has been horribly misplaced, because it belongs to the last generation of 24th century starships.

i kinda agree, its weird not seeing the akira at tier 5. that ship kicks some serious ass. and its beautiful.

neither does the Excelsior or D'kyr, but for some reason they're there. And yet the Akira isn't. Most illogical...

Fixed that for you.