Couple of comments considering one of mine helped start this...
Hermes - base model is in my opinion very slightly better than its pl. A lot of ships in this game can say that, so no news flash there. But, with the variants available to it (both missile and fighter) it becomes much better. T-bolts are significantly more survivable than Auroras and have a much higher damage potential, even if the average output is similar (up to four crit opportunities). The Flash missile has been described above, but this ship can also do nasty things well placed with the heavy, multi warhead.
Make it like the Tethys and unable to take the variants and its a fine ship, top in its class due to range/interceptors and a flight, all of which allow it to extend its reach into the fight while remaining at least relatively safe. Unlike many hull four patrol craft it is also relatively resilient against fighters when flown in pairs due to copious anti-fighter and the interceptor grid.
PL/Initiative system faults - The big issue here is that the hermes is a fabulous initiative sink, unlike say the Sunhawk which is useless. The Hermes is near invulnerable to long range non-beam fire due to the interceptor (long range systems being notoriously low dice) and is able to affect the battle from a safe range. Same issue we see with the Vree Vaarl and Centauri Corvan. Resilient sinks that do not have to go in harms way.
Arm. made this worse with the high reward for buying down and increased squadron sizes. It is now almost mandatory to buy a large number of intiative sinks so that the large squadron of heavy hitters can be moved late enough to accomodate boresights/ensure a profitable caf. Even if you lose initiative you have hopefully put yourself in a position where the #2 firing position allows you to fire 70% or more of your heavy guns. And while it is certainly something that your own heavy weapons can deal with if the sink is accomidating and doesn't hide away, it still often takes several turns, assuming you have the right weaponry. God help the abbai here with nothing long ranged or fast enough to get more than one shot before the hermes all power and races past. Given many scenarios are won or lost in the first three turns...and many are limited to ten turns...that is not time you can really afford.
General comment - all games deal with the swarm vs hero figure issue, the previous incarnation of the PL system while somewhat convoluted dealt with this nicely buy making buying down eventually stop paying and keeping buying up expensive. The change in Arm. unbalanced things by making the buy down too valuable, given the initiative system. You will see this much more if you or your opponent usually fly bore sighted or manuever based (think Vree or ISA) fleets as this is where the initiative system really shows its issues. The old breakdowns encouraged buying close to the pl of the battle...now...eh....
On topic wrap - Hermes, yes it is too good under the current system. Enough so to warrant a change? Probably not, as their are others with similar ability to affect a battle (though perhaps none that stack so well). For our upcoming campaign I might just want to see some sort of cost to using the variant missiles...same for e-mines...say 1 ep per ship using? You quickly see them disappear from patrol hulls but remain in standard use on things like the apollo. Maybe...
Ripple
wish I could make a point without being so wordy...anyone recommend a good writing program?
good guess
