People don't realise that fundamental changes like this which initially appear to benefit lower level players, will quickly turn into a weakness that is easily exploited by certain loadouts. Especially when said players don't know what they're doing or how to account for the changes. It is quite literally impossible that in the few weeks leading up to the patch, to have tested every ship and gun combination in the game to ensure that this was a balanced change to make.
If the intent was to make it a fairer experience to new players, there were already so many tools implemented to help them, that refining them would have worked instead of overhauling the entire game again, and punishing people who are still trying to learn it as it was, and annoying the people who really liked Freelancer's unrealistic simplicity.