Unless it can register head-on collision, or perhaps punish whoever crashes harder into the other. (For example, a head-on headbang hurts more than getting poked in the wing). Explosions would still hurt the other player. This may make it a tactic in team play to go and ram the enemy when you run out of health.
Other interesting factors can be the importance of knocking down subsystems. Perhaps if a sensor goes down on a capship, your beam and artillery distance is halved (since they autofire). If nav goes down your ship no longer gives warning sounds when nearly colliding with someone. If the weapons subsystem goes down perhaps your ship can no longer use their flak and smaller turrets to hold off missiles, fighters, etc. Losing engines is obvious, 0 speed, stranding. Losing the communications array may make it impossible to command your fighters if a mission grants players fighter support.
Perhaps special multi-versions of capships can be made, giving all ships missile abilities (also GTVA ships). I found it's possible to win with a huge difference in capship battles as long as you glide sideways in time to use your flak turrets to take out the enemies missiles.