a heavy mauler is a heavy mauler no matter how crappy the firing platform. With FSG, hopefully there'll be an alternate way of using these in the early game that's not so weapon reliant but isn't straight-up better than the unshielded version.
The problem with Heavy Mauler (and HVD) is it is too rare except maybe by endgame. Heavy Mauler is rare enough that I usually reload the game if I lose a ship with them. It is easier for me to replace or recover most ships than Heavy Mauler.
Hound (and other small ships prone to dying) is too fragile to put Heavy Mauler on. I probably put Arbalest or Heavy Mortar because I would not care if I lose those weapons. (Similarly, this is why I do not put Railguns and Light Needlers on Lashers. Lashers die, and they were common enough before 0.8 that replacing them was easier than those weapons.)
As for hullmod taking ships out of garbage tier being too powerful, I do not quite agree with that. It is about as must-have for unshielded ships as ITU and Resistant Flux Conduits for most ships, Expanded Deck Crew for carriers, Expanded Missile Racks for missileships, and Advanced Optics for some beam ships. You could say that maxing vents takes a lot of ships out of garbage tier for not having enough dissipation to support weapons and vent fast enough. For real flux hogs like Mjolnir, player needs extra dissipation from skills to support it and make it worth using.
EDIT: A ship is garbage tier is bad - so bad that a player would not want to use it in combat ever. Something that takes a ship out of liability to usefulness can only be a good thing. It expands useful ship options in combat, not add gamebreakers. Plus, Hounds are still quite bad even with shields, just not hopeless. Cerberus with shield was better than Lasher during 0.65, though I do not know of that remains true today.
Lux losing half speed for IR Pulse Laser, why? They were not very strong offensively, and they are more expensive than Sparks. With that change, I might ignore Lux and stick with Broadswords.
Re: Piranha. They would become the low-grade guns of bombers. (Actually, they already are, but at least they are effective.) Only good to put on disposable ships if you cannot afford to lose better bomber chips.
I have no problem with Converted Hangar at Fighter Doctrine. It does complete change ships, and it is very fun, but it is not always must-have for all ships. It is very good, probably about Flux Distributor level (i.e., very nice to have, but can be sacrificed if ship needs more OP to do its job), but not so vital to be ITU level. I would probably dump missiles for Converted Hangar, but I would not give up more vital hullmods the ship needs to do its basic job.
If anything, I like to see more hullmods in skills. For example, Advanced Optics at Gunnery Implants 2 or ITU at Gunnery Implants 3.
one step closer to obvilion in space and difficulty slider.
I can see that (and I dislike dynamic difficulty that encourages low-level runs or other degenerate stuff), although it could be justified as them getting stronger as time passes like you are. You do need a source of ships and weapons, and if you cannot buy them, you need to take them from enemies you kill.