Note that officer skills do skew things some - Defensive Systems and Power Grid Modulation are very nearly must-have options for an officer for an Aurora, and with that extra 25% shield cost reduction, going for stabilized + front shields is a bit less attractive.
I'll also note that my preferred Aurora variant mounts 2x pulse laser, 2x ir pulse, 4x ion cannon, 1x heavy blaster; this gives you 1100-ish sustained DPS for 1200-ish flux/s - not quite flux-neutral, but close enough (once we count in officer skills) - with the heavy blaster as a very-much-not-flux-neutral add-in when you need to break armor. And once you've got a target high on flux, the ion cannons shut them down and let you stay close much longer than you could based on your shields alone. The AI is, of course, not -as- competent with this build as the player can be, but it's also not terrible, either.