You're literally the first person I've ever seen that's said the Lynx and Cougar weren't like absolute top tier
Are you living in 2010, perhaps?
There are at least 5 ships that immediatly come to mind when thinking about better VHF's than Lynx
Nah more like 2013
But has either ship ever seen a nerf? There's a reason everybody was trying to get their hands on one
Lynx has been nerfed significantly from its introduction, its rather middle of the pack now, 12.7k armor, 66 turn. Used to be 68 and 14k armor when it was introduced iirc. Its solid but not close to "the best".
Cougar was turned from a medium into a light but the bigger thing is the meta regarding bombers has made light/med bombers less desirable than heavy bombers.
Both aren't awful but I wouldn't call them best in class either.
edit: @TacticalNoodle Still doesn't change the fact its basically a vhf with 135 bots and a cau7