Maybe make that a slow explosion, and make another, fast explosion... the ships in FS all blow up the same pretty much, this should be changed, and be FREDdable so that the mission designer controls how the explosion goes down. Make the default be the normal FS explosions, and add others as options. What you think?
You could have one explosion really fast, like an on-board bomb exploded, have another explosion for a ship that's basically been torn to shreds little bit by little bit at the hands of enemy bombers, have another explosion for reactor going supercritical, hmm... how about the ammo supplies going off? WWII battleships threw some pretty impressive fireworks when their main (or secondary, or any) magazine cooked off. Again, what do you think?