I suppose another lovely advantage of having such a flexible missile capability is that I can image CIG adding in some kind of longer range probe for scanning Asteroid belts etc - wouldn't make sense to fly a larger ship in, so a probe missile would easily be the best solution for a detailed local scan.Another advantage is its missile load, the base model you can be equipped with 12 triple missile platforms. That is a total of 36 S2 missiles. The Andromeda has 4x6 S2 and 4x7 S1, a total of 24 S2 missiles and 28 S1 missiles, but it is a bigger target itself.
Which reminds me, which other ship has rocket pods? The Mustang Delta has 2 rocket pods, but unless all guns are down, I hardly use them. The rocket pods make the Delta an ideal short range ground support ship.