TL;DR Use the R&D system to level ships from T1 to T6 in a way of the player's choosing.

I picked up the Prototype Light Cruiser (Walker Class) that scaled with me... and I loved the bloody thing! I'm actually kinda pis...er... upset that I'm now leveled past it. I know they released a new ship recently that levels up to T6 (though it's freaking behind a loot box... puck you very much) and I love the idea of scaling ships (and hope they release more... outside of loot boxes, please).

In fact, I want Cryptic to take it a step further. I want ALL ships to level up. Ok... this won't happen as it would kill a lot of Cryptic's income, but seriously, I can fall in love with a ship class outside of the T6 range.

So... here's a compromise and, I think they can work it so they STILL make all the money... "Upgradable / Retrofitable Ships"! With Weapons, armors, equipment, we have the R&D system which allows us to slowly level up our gear. We have the salvage system which allows us to (randomly) change the bonuses for that gear... why not apply it to ships?

They can still give us free ships every 10 levels up to T5 (per usual), but, players can put R&D into "Upgrading" lower tier ships. Do you like your NX-class ship? Cool, pump some R&D into it to level it up from T1 to T2, then even more to go from T2 to T3, etc, etc! Each tier bringing up the base stats and also grants access to (but not outright give you) a new ship station (at Ensign rank) for the career of your choice. So... if you're going for science, add a science station, while another player may go engineer for that same station.

Do some R&D to add a the station. Do more R&D to up-rank a station (from, say Ensign to Lt). They can keep things balanced by requiring stations to have a pyramid slot scheme... All stations start at Ensign. You can level any one station to Lt. Level that same station to LtC and you get access to level another station to Lt... and so on. Once admiralty is unlocked, the Salvage system can be used to add (randomly... if it must be) a specialization to (some of) the consoles.

This R&D upgrade mechanic can be brought into all areas such as the number of devices and consoles!

As with all things STO, they'd make this a grind... probably more than it really needs to be... but, by doing so, they can still sell the ships as they're stated now for those players that don't want to bother going the R&D route. Maybe some of the C-Store ships will allow players to skew the station upgrade pyramid by allowing one extra rank for another career.

I was just thinking of this idea and needed to share. Do I have any hope of this ever happening? There's a better chance of Borg going pacifist, but still... one never knows.