I would guess the Eagle was nerfed because it outturned every VHF by far, could outturn most of the HFs and even some of the LFs, could use 7 guns to the sides if flown right and was pretty much the best VHF except maybe for the Sabre if you knew how to use the agility it had. Just my guess though.
Sabre ... 7 guns, hard to hit, good agility blah blah. There's a reason why the ship is one of the two most used ships.
It still retains its "hard to hit"-ability, almost even worse than before. Shots go through those holes by the dozen, especially MRs. Besides that it also got superior strafing now. Something that only three ships have. Not sure if that was an oversight or not tbh. Lower core is one thing ... the buffed agility and still being hard to hit (which is to be expected with that weird hull) means this thing is still a beast though.
So, while I see that the Eagle has obviously been nerfed, maybe a bit too much, but who knows, the Sabre is still in the upper regions of the list of the better ships.