I'd tread carefully as far as the Knossos is concerned, for a couple reasons.
First, it's always moving so fast and the pieces are so far away, it's impossible to get close enough to appreciate any details.
Second, it appears as-is in a whole slew of command briefing animations and cutscenes, in wireframe, closeup, with diagrams and everything. It's the most heavily documented POF in the game resources.
Finally, it's the only example of Ancient design we have to go on. With Terran and Vasudan ships there's a general idea of what can be done with the shape, but the existing Knossos geometry is all there is we have to work with.