IMO early-mid is more on the too generous side, I usually do bounties early and the payout seemed to be high for most.
What Thaago already mentioned helps a lot: don't haul too many ships around and just throw away whatever got too beaten up.
Also prioritize getting all possible officers ASAP, and first 3 points in leadership helps a lot if you still have problems.
No need to cheese to make combat worth it, I generally dislike phase ships/DC/SO and it was fine without them.
Brawler/sunder/medusa/champion mix up until finding high tech package worked.
Kite/lasher/enforcer/falcon/carrier spam with all missile+strike commander+PD officers also worked.
It's definitely not my awesome piloting skills, didn't even do much with the carrier fleet.
Do wish that non-officered non-DC chaff wasn't that bad though.
There is a point later where final bounty strength is reached and you do not have a full fleet yet, that's when onslaught+legion fleets hurt (doubly against carriers, was still well worth the payout but the crew losses are a pain).
Conquests are great for piloting, but when you can coordinate a fleet against them the abysmal shields make them much easier for most compositions than the low tech IMO.
Paragon/Astral generally get swarmed at standard battlesize.
After that part remnant fleets and special bounties are the ones that cause losses, standard human ones are outclassed by the fully S-modded/officered ships of your choice.
Harbingers/dooms are the big threat, the rest IMO aren't really dangerous for a fleet that can stand up to radiants.
I wonder if it would be better if random bounties didn't go over a threshold (~150-200k maybe) and high end bounties were exclusive to contact missions.
I would not like this. 150-200k are fights on the level of first few destroyer purchases or even tutorial fleets (for the weak pirate ones, bit of RNG there) for player who specialize in bounty hunting. I like the contact system in general, but I don't want to have to grind through 10-20 bar missions to get a decently important bounty contact.
Same here, finding strong non-redacted fleets to fight shouldn't be a chore.
Even after you find a very high contact you have to go back to it every time for a target location.