Squalls were nerfed in this patch, but it has proven pretty ineffective, because the nerf did nothing to reduce the fundamental strong aspect of the squall
Yes, the nerf did not make it useless in its role. Why would it?
Who said anything about making it useless? The problem is that it is too good at its 'intended role' and the nerf did not change anything about that, so the nerf didn't really have any significant effect. The weapon is more or less just as good as it was last patch as long as you have some anti armor/hull follow up, which any good build will have, so it is still too strong, just like last patch. It could do 0 hull/armor damage and I think it would still be pretty much the same.
The slow power creep of missile hullmods and skill buffs over the last several patches (particularly the increases in ammo, and the additional damage and ROF from elite missile spec)
RoF bonus from Missile Spec was introduced well over two years ago, and this patch it was partially countered by Expanded Missile Racks getting a +25% RoF penalty when S-modded. You are REALLY stretching the facts here.
The game is effectively getting one major patch per year at this point, so 2 years ago is like 2-3 patches prior to this one. Relatively recent in the history of this 10+ year old game. This is only the second major patch since the most recent skill rework that added missile spec. Here are the squall-relevant changes in the two patches prior to this one:
0.95.1a: squall got ammo increased from 100->160, missile spec elite effect got +10% damage
0.95a: squall got improved target tracking, skill rework: adding missile spec which gave +100% ammo and +50% ROF to all missiles
The squall tracking buff was a very major change, it was nearly useless against a lot of ships before that. The minor nerfs this patch are very small compared to all the buffs it got over the prior two patches that led to it needing a nerf.
IMO, the s-mod penalty for EMR is not actually a ROF penalty, it's an OP tax to maintain the same ROF, since you can just choose to not s-mod it and s-mod something else instead. Gryphon gets built in EMR without the s-mod penalty anyway.