Duplicate Ship Models

I don't think anyone has addressed this but if they have I'm sorry, but I just found it a little odd that all the major factions have that one ship model for two classes, one explorer and one basic military.  I have no problem with it being the same model, but perhaps a re-skin or something so that it would be easier to tell at a glance during a space battle what kind of ship it was?  Also pidgeon-holing the different ship classes into a specific preset kind of takes away from the whole idea of designing your own ships.  One of the wonderful things about the first game was your ability to customize ships however you wanted.  If you wanted small attack carriers or super-giant cannon platforms there was no real restriction based on the class other than a few bonuses to tonnage for certain modules and the like.  I'm sure this was a purposeful design choice but if anyone knows why I was just wondering, thanks for taking your time and reading this!