I get the impression the avenger is too weak because the AI manage their shields better (in general, without the flag let alone with, but the practical upshot is it's virtually useless compared to the same weapon in Fs1).
Since when is blinding people aesthetic
?
And the bombs are definitely, definitely, not the same, values or otherwise their explosions when shot down in flight have gone from a very slight annoyance to a major hazard.
Heck, you used to be able to ram bombs (on both games) and come out unscratched if you couldn't shoot them down for whatever reason (disarmed/depleted weapon energy), do that now and you'll probably die, I realise it's an SCP 'problem' but it heavily effects how true the gameplay of the port is to FS1, and the values can be changed to fix it.
Banshee being looks is fine if that's the case.
If you don't have a problem with the Avenger you should try playing on insane
I need to go back and test the athena properly but I'm pretty sure it didn't lose 25% hull in a heavy collision with a light fighter.
As for missile tracking... I don't use intercepters/hornets much and if I do I don't put any faith in them/don't pay much attention to them hense probably not noticing