Yeah, flight model is broken ...
Just, because you dont like it, doesnt mean its bad and game is tech demo.
If you play anything other than mouse and keyboard + interactive mode, it absolutely is. Which is saying a lot because the mechanics require as much assistance as IM provides to feel somewhat rational means the core model is broken.
It's been a while since i played but i didn't notice anything that seemed like it was broken last time i did, what is wrong with it?
Mainly it doesn't feel like a flight model and more like a FPS with ships. That and combat is still devoid of feedback and logic in what kind of design they are making the game to be.
First off the thrust power they use in ships makes them seem massless. That thrust power also eliminates fine control of ships. Seriously every stream they try to fly "cinematically" and you can see how impossible it is to make ships behave like they do in their advertising. You have large ships able to stop on a dime and accelerate to full speed (they reduced top speed but increased acceleration for reasons) in a couple seconds. What this does is not only make it resemble an FPS but rewards bad flying by making mistakes easily correctable. Good flight games have risk and reward determining your approach to combat, if you want to use high energy passes or go closer for low energy turning matches to out maneuver your opponent. SC has "whoever has pixel perfect aiming, wins." Which is why the meta turns into circle strafing and aiming with mouse and is more focused on DPS than piloting skill.
Second is the imbalance and disparity between mouse & keyboard IM and everything. IM essentially makes corrections to the ship movement as you aim the guns so much of flight is automated to let you aim to fly. This isn't even balanced against relative mode on mouse. So other control methods are inferior to having the game fly for you. When in combat it's much more dependent on what input mode the other person is using than it is on ship or individual skill.
Third is the combat type for ships. The aforementioned flight model leads to DPS and aiming being the main determining factor of usefulness when it comes to weapons. So the biggest guns on the most gimballed turrets is what wins the day. Then there are missiles which still have no defined role. CR wants a Star Wars type engagements (so gun in visual range) but we have high DPS missiles in that same range, so there isn't much reason to be selective on what to use in a situation (missile evasion mechanics not yet fleshed out aside). With the combat there is also little feedback to when you are doing damage to a target, or it have any real effect. Even in WW2 sims and such you knock out modules and it effects the target plane noticeably. You get parts coming off, decreased function, visual cues to know if your perforated the radiator/oil well/ fuel tank etc etc. There isn't any feedback besides an indiscernible little model changing colors with no feedback on systems damaged.
To keep is somewhat brief (I can go on for much longer), my last point is the terrible HUD/HDD communication of information to the pilot and spamming useless info to the pilot. The cockpits are detailed but seeming designed independent of ergonomics and having parts considering the pilot's field of view and priorities of thier peripheral vision.
A lot of pilot's experience is a mess and despite the yearly song and dance of a single patch where they claim to work on it, it still is a mess and not getting better. Considering that ship to ship and flight is the #1 way players will interact with the game, it's concerning to see it so neglected.