Okay. The main reason Kestrels
tend to be prefered over the Hawks are that Kestrels often get Pl-D racks that Hawks don't, and Klingon Phaser arcs.
This is not a dig on the Hawk ships themselves, cause they are quite capable ships in their own right. Per SFB history, those hawks were designed with lessons learned from the Kestrel ships... Turn mode, etc. are Klingon-like more than ISC or Gorn-like.
Now, if you are serious about editing the Rommie weapon loadouts, these are the things I'd consider:
Point Defense: Rommie Hawks lack the serious PD available on the Kestrels. Adding 2-4 Pl-D racks per ship (mostly command and BCH hawk variants) would make them competitive. The Firehawks, IIRC, wouldn't get them as the KRs and K7Rs (D6 and D7 "line" conversions), don't carry D-racks...
"Plasma Bolts": The Dis-1 can do damage on a scale close to a Bolted Pl-F, with near-identical range limitations. For Comparison:
Range 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Plasma-F bolt 10 10 10 10 10 10 7 7 7 7 7 5 5 3 3 1
Dizzy 10 10 8 8 8 6 6 6 6 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
Unfortunately, hit rate favors the Dizzy over the bolt, but not by much.
This, of course, assumes the disruptor is overloaded for any range 8 or colser shot. Perhaps replacing Pl-F with Disruptors on some ships, and making a rule that they can't be fired more than every 1:30 of the game clock. Of course, you would need to trust the Romulan pilots to do so regularly, or make sure pilots film the battles for time-checks later...
IIRC, the Pl-X does damage on a scale close to a Pl-S. Perhaps replacing Pl-S with Pl-X as a "sabot" refit, and increasing power cause the Pl-X needs Pl-R power to charge, would be an option. Someone with R10 would have to give the exact BPV cost associated with this upgrade, but IIRC it's somewhere between +5-7 BPV per launcher.
Any ship you add new toys too, instead of a straight-up replacement, should also have it's cloak cost increased...