If something is blatantly stronger than everything else to the point you're gimping yourself by not using it, then I think we should rebalance it. I'm not sure if SO is there yet but I can't deny certain ships are straight up much better with it and certain ships are bad without it.
By that metric, Dedicated Targeting Core and Integrated Targeting Unit (ITU) also fall into that category, no? Is there a more impactful hullmod for capital class ships? Is a capital with ITU straight up better with it and without such a hullmod pretty bad? Is it wrong to design entire ship classes around the hullmod (or vice versa)? If safety overrides is removed, doesn't that mean every cruiser should have ITU instead? How about expanded missile racks on missile heavy ships? How about phase ships and either Adaptive Phase Coils or Phase Anchor? Those two are so strong, you're prevented from taking them together. Do people typically build phase ships without either of them?
So I don't think a ship that is designed to work with a particular "optional" hullmod is necessarily a bad thing.
I'm vaguely curious as to why people call safety overrides boring. As a player, a lot more thought has to go into positioning and retreat timing on a safety override Medusa than, say, piloting a slow long range ship that is part of a battle line. I would only imagine its boring if you're fighting sufficiently weaker opposition. I can't think of any fights I typically do where I can AFK because I'm using a safety overrided player ship, for example. You can AFK missile fleets and slow long range fleets when they sufficiently overpower the opposition as well.
At the end of the day, given combat in the game is a race to see who can reduce the otherside to zero hull first, ships can be boiled down to 4 different metrics: speed, range, damage output, damage absorption.
Speed and range are typically inverse to each other. Longer range ships are slower. Similarly, damage output and long term damage absorption (i.e. flux cycle) is also typically better on shorter ranged ships.
So there's a continuum from long range and slow capitals to short range safety override frigates. While one can argue about where current numbers land, by eliminating safety overrides completely, you are reducing the build space. Suddenly Pathers play like the Luddic Church, which reduces the enemy fleet variety. Yes, we can buff ships like the Fury if you take away safety Overrides, but what would such a buffed Fury play like? Would they play like already existing ships? Does it play more like an Eagle or maybe Plasma Cannon Champion? In a safety override-less world you have to put ITU on it like those ships if you want to be competitive. So more of a medium range somewhat fast ship instead of a short range really fast ship, in a game that already has somewhat fast and medium range or average speed long range ships. You can't just make the Fury a lot faster (like base 120), because it has access to ITU, so the build space is restricted.
So I'd much rather have numbers tweaked a little if things are too strong, rather than completely chopping off a section of the ship variety parameter space by removal. "Berserker" ships with short PPT, so they need to play really aggressively, is definitely a different archetype from long range line ships, or medium range skirmisher ships, and certainly feels different to fight against.
