As far as too defensive, use some of the higher end engie "ofensive" abilites and use the lower end for heals and speed boosts, that will improve the damage output. You can argue that other ships can do it better, but they are left at a disadvantage when they could use that extra ensign slot for a contingency ability, like a speed burst. Even with the cooldown argument, its still a decent tool to have.

My Galaxy is the only cruiser I have right now that has aux to id, which is an all purpose use buff, it can be used to buff against photonic shockwave or to pick up a BIG turn rate boost for a short period.

The R can run DBB and torps up front to increase its damage vs broadsiders when using the stardrive. My Gal-R stardrive sits at 18.3' per second turn rate, its not too hard to use some 90' weapons that have higher dps at that point. Throw a HYT1 and BO1 and you don't have a lt. comm in the mix, but neither do most of the cruisers or sci ships (think about the star cruisers crying the blues)