I've been following this thread for a while (since it was posted in fact) and I figured I'd finally post my take on the entire debate. First off I'd like to say that I do fly both cruisers and escorts on my tac captain so I have considerable experience with both ship types (not an expert by any means, but I know them pretty well). I don't think that the issue is actually with cruisers themselves. The problem lies in the games healing and damage resistance skills. The best tanking skills in the game (based on my experience) are; Tactical Team, Emergency Power to Shields, Rotate Shield Polarity, Transfer Shield Strength, and Hazard Emitters. All these skills are available with a Lt slot. That means that every escort in the game has access to most, if not all of these skills. So the only thing that actually makes cruisers tankier then escorts is the fact that they have slightly higher shield modifiers and more hull hit points.

Heck if they just adjusted the energy-useage profile of beam weapons, so they worked like cannons for just a brief drain spike rather than 'holding' their drain throughout the beam's longer firing cycle, how much would that adjustment alone buff cruisers (and some sci ships) ?

Well again, I fly my Ody, tank whats there to tank and do my 6000 DPS (more than most of the escorts in STFs). Its only a matter of the build.
Even though a little less power drain when using beams would be quite nice, dont forget there is a cause for the power drain as it is. If they do something about it, they should test it first, so it will get only changed once.

I want to know your build, unless you play a tac.

I play as an Engineer and I am able to to 6000 dps with my Regent, and that's with using the Lt Universal as a Science. The best I was able to do with so far was 6751 dps and that was with an AtB build.

I think you misread my post - I meant increase the cooldown time, not decrease. And not just the EP2X but to everything.

This is the crux of the problem and also why DHC's are the only game in town - right now the spike damage is (nearly) the only thing that can break the inevitable stalemate between any two ships that are not escorts.

Nope, char is an engineer. I fly with Lt.Cmdr. Tactical and Lt. Tactical with 2 TT, 1 FAW2, 1 APB1 and 1 APB 2, boosting mine and my teammates damage. But even with a ensign tac and lt. tac I can get above 5k dps. But I dont fly like this often, because even with the Lt.Cmdr. Tac I can tank in Hive Onslaught (and yes, FAW is running every 30sec), so I dont need this more tankish configuration (for PVP, a Lt. Cmdr. Sci makes more sense though).

But the Regent and Fleet Excelsior are viable ships too.

Well I must be doing something majorly wrong with my fleet Excel as I cant hit that 5k mark.

Here is my build maybe you can tell me what I've done wrong

Swap in Aux2Bat1 in there somewhere, maybe add APO1? I did that with an Odyssey and it makes a heck of a difference. Also maybe drop the monotanium and a torpedo for the Assimilated Module and either the Omega Torp or Cutting Beam, for the 2-piece bonus, cut that drain down? Its a thought.