I haven't had a chance to run some of the newcomers in my fleet yet, notably the Legion, but I think my favorite has to be the Drover.
Small, easy to come by, and understated. It's not a ship that screams powerhouse. With a good officer and pair of fighter wings though, it turns into a tough little bugger. I've lost Medusas, Enforcers, Sunders, Herons, and every variety of frigate I've gotten my hands on. I still have yet to lose a Drover in any fight that wasn't a total loss. With the built in ship system it can field a lot of firepower, and excels at cleaning up small Remnant fleets in short order. I used to manually pilot my flagship in every single fight. In 0.8, more and more often I find myself deploying carriers and destroyers, sitting back and issuing commands from the tactical screen and watching the light show.
I'm cycling all manner of things through my fleet to get a feel for this version, but I strongly suspect that if I start another campaign I might end up with 4-5 Drover based fleet. These things are great.