I was very disappointed to hear the DEVs response on the matter. I feel there can be middle ground on the subject. Having such a restrictive weapon system for the sake of balance seems really lame. It also greatly reduces how creative to can be with ship design. Because of turrets, the optimal design is a cube or flat, wide ship. I tried to build a vertical ship, and the only way I could get the turrets to work was to build a stick off the front top of the ship and put all the turrets on it.
What if the spine mounted/hard point block weapons had extreamly basic stats? Making them about as powerful as a low level turret to start. To furth help balance initial damage and size they would require a constant energy draw plus generate heat based on size.
To beef them up you would add weapons modules to them just like you do ship modules. Things like Supper conductors to reduce heat, laser refractors to increase damage.
This way you keep them from being over powered, AND still make looting the main foucs of acquiring a killer weapon.