The main shortcoming in FASA design work is that it was all done in 2D, and often just in side view at first. You can kitbash decent things when you work in 3D - but if you attempt to do a novel-looking ship out of the familiar parts and all you have to work with is a side view, you end up with a ship that is unappealingly tall and long. After all, the only "new" thing you can do is insert new bits between the known components. Which means you end up with something like the Chandley or the Northampton, with pylons so long that the drive plasma probably arrives at the nacelles in cold droplets.
I dig Chandley nevertheless. And Loknar. And obscure things like Cle Dan or Laweya.
Timo Saloniemi