well I don't hate the orion and the deimos, althought they aren't exactly the best example of a starship in the sci-fi games history.
Actually this can be said for most of the capships in fs2, I dare, and some are even worse than orion or deimos. And I have to say that the orion with glowmaps isn't really that bad.
Personally I think that 90% of the problem lay in the textures/uvmaps, since the designs aren't usually that bad.
The deimos shape for example remind me a galeon, wich could be cool, but as she is, she looks just like a brunch of polys with 3 textures tiled almost randomly.
Given a lot free time I could completely retexture she with custom maps, and I'm sure she could become a kickass ship. Problem is that I don't have 20 hours to spend in doing this:/