That seems good, and immediately I see myself using it in 2 medium energies on Conquest, instead of having Burst PDs all around. Which I think is how things should work ideally, if you're willing to sacrifice a larger mount for a PD weapon, that weapon should be much better compared to small mount spam.
Most definitely. The main comparison being a flack compared to a vulcan.
Vulcan, 500 DPS(kind of), 250 range 4 OP
Flack 200 DPS (AoE!), 500 range!, 8 OP
But if we compare a HBL to a Burst PD (which isn't even that great a small PD mount!) we get
BPD 214/64 DPS, 500 range, 7 OP
HBL 244/74 DPS, 600 range, 11 OP
We barely get any extra range, we barely get any extra DPS, we don't get any AoE. But additionally we have to start competing with "for real ship killers" like heavy blasters
If HBL was AoE. Able to target three independent targets at once, but not able to stack that damage onto a single target. It would be far better. Granted, making that happen might be very difficult in terms of creating the weapon