Mini thrusters on the front? I think we can safely assume those things exist, I mean, how could we even strafe if we wouldn't have more thrusters on more sides of the ship in "reality" than what's displayed by the game engine? (Remember BSG? There are strafing and engine kill there too, just displayed with a tiny bit more details.)
Indeed, there are those things in BSG , but the whole controll / fire mechanism is a lot more simple at some point , which I tend to like better then what FL has. if I could go with aimint with the mouse and flying with the keyboard, I'd be happy, but there are so many buttons needed just to use 60% of game mechanics that it makes it impossible.
