Personally would have preferred if gun types got a touch up. Still, changes seem interesting, but field testing will be the decider.
Main two questions I'd probably have from all of this are:
1. Will environmental effects be dumbed down this update as well? As it stands, regardless of distance, shield-type, or ship class, environmental hazards insta-kill shields. If they aren't being dumbed down, will molecular shields just receive a special resistance against these hazards altogether?
2. Will these effect descriptions be added to in-game infocards for each shield, so as to not force people to comb the forums in a month or two to figure out exactly what's going on with their shield?