We're not asking for a new ship class. We're asking for a variety of transports. It wouldn't spread players more thinly across ship classes, since they would still be flying transports. The ships would be categorized as transports. I really wish you'd read at least a single post in this thread before you replied assuming that we were asking for a new combat class. These aren't like the previous frigate suggestions by other people. These aren't a combat ship in between gunboats and cruisers. They're just more ships like the Salvager and Raba.
There would not need to be any changes in the class-countering dynamic. These ships would still be countered by anything that a transport is countered by: Bombers and cruisers. Granted, such ships in the hands of a decent pilot won't be killable by a lone bomber, but they also won't be powertrading ships, due to their reduced cargo.