What ships do you use for this kind of fleet?
A lot of vigilances (replace once you get SD+DO), some Champions, Gryphons, Geminis, Herons and a player piloted Pegasus (Conquest works too but I prefer Pegasus for maximum spam). Afflictor(P) + Monitor if you feel like cheesing for distractions and damage buffs. Support doctrine and Derelict operations means cruisers push 10-13 DP and Pegasi are at 35DP with 5 D-mods. You can go combat for Missile spec and dmg or loop around Leadership for 3rd S-mod and fighter buffs.
Other good candidate ships are Venture(P)s and Buffalo Mk2 but they don't have much going on other than missile spam - midline also has ships with good shields and weapons that aren't missiles only. Odyssey with Gorgons and Squalls is also decent.
Overall lots and lots of Gorgons, some Pilums and Salamanders for EMP with Squalls if enemy has good shields, maybe Dragonfires and Harpoons if I want some finishers, many medium kinetics and tons of fighters. Once you get enough Flash bombers you're unstoppable, entire fleet shoots missiles and bombs that can barely be shot down. Gorgons do guaranteed damage and distract, then bombers and heavier missiles finish off. AI freaks out the moment even 1 Gorgon is flying close.
When I used them in my fleet, I had a mix of all of them except for Gazers (they're just not my playstyle, no idea how good they are). And I don't understand why would anyone want to rework them, they're unique. Argument of "they're only when spammed" is weak because you can argue that for half of the game's weapons and ships, especially missile weapons in general. Also that's just not true, a single Vigilance with a Hydra and EMR is probably going to be ultra annoying for the enemy fleet. Have a ship that's weak to frigates? Put Gorgons on it, problem solved.
If there's a missile that imo seems underwhelming in few numbers but funny strong when spammed, that's the Hurricane. Single Pilum Catapult in your fleet will do more than the single Hurricane.
Back to DEMs, they really shouldn't have a burst kinetic missile as that's basically Sabot but better, would be ultra annoying to fight against.
I don't see Hurricanes nearly as oppressive as DEMs, Hurricanes miss ships a lot and can be dodged, DEMs can't be dodged. Hurricane is very underwhelming this update, behavior change and going from 9 to 7 submunitions made them much weaker.
DEMs can also do hilariously memey stuff like this : look how the charge up starts (and later fires the entire beam) through a friendly allied ship (meaning it's impossible to shoot down and since it's a beam that tracks at fast speed, impossible to dodge too -> guaranteed 4k dmg per missile here) :
Now, you can do this with other missiles too like PCLs, Annihilators, really any missile that isn't a torpedo but in order to "cover" for your missile you gotta be pretty close to it, it's not always the play. DEM missiles themselves have 1500-2500 range, and their beams have 700-1100 range, with flawless tracking, so you really gotta go out of your way to shoot them down or tank with shields.
My main argument to rework is that, on ships that can't immediately put several DEMs out at once they aren't good, once you get FMR spammers with a DEM + Torpedo/Squall/Fighter mix they become amazing as sudden burst damage and distraction vs smaller ships, then you get a Pegasus and your screen is just this :
I do think they should be better on their own, and benefit slightly less from FMR and other buffs.
