While I feel that the Renzu line -may- be a exception to the following I can't help but feel that we've all become somewhat attached to the vessels that need replacement over the years. People associate the Dacite with the Dacite, the Maffic with the Maffic. They've come to appreciate and have a general sense of lurve for models that they've become familiar with.
I feel that they do need replacing, the models are substandard and not in keeping with the overall aesthetic of the mod. However I can't help but feel that we would be well served by taking, in almost every case, the current model and simply giving it a "clean up". Taking the Dacite, cleaning the textures and 'fixing' the model with the addition of proper engines, cockpit and so on. Though the final product is still recognizable as the Dacite.
I feel that would not only minimize the impact of replacing models which many have come to find as iconic in addition to massively reducing the workload of hitboxing and balancing a dozen models.
For example:
It's an import. But an import which has a model which is emminently simply to work with. Clean up the cockpit, edit the engine to give it a "proper" shape. The work of two hours and you have a model which is ready to roll out the door and upgraded for a better, brighter future.
Likewise:
Fix up the cockpit and engines. Make it into a bitchen freighter or somesuch and she's ready to rock and roll.
Going down that road would, I feel, spell the difference between -practical- change which could be effected in a week versus several months of deliberation and the inclusion of multiple models which have no correlation to the previous (which we have seen in previous discussions, where ships which had been in use for the mining mod were proposed to be replaced with civilian fighters and the like) or fly in the face of what the community has taken as an established look and feel.