Icons can work. You could do sectored icons in a FullThrust (PP:E/F) type model.
I prefer to not use hexes. I prefer a nice black or speckled felt starmat. Lord knows, a measuring tape and a cardboard turn gauge (or just use the pips painted on the figure bases) can work easily enough. And I actually like to let a player indicate he wants to turn 20 degrees instead of 30, if that's his whim.
I have contemplated upscaled Full Thrust ships. Getting a good model of the free-trader, etc. isn't hard. You could do the damage as iconic. The only issue becomes using weapons combat mechanics that allow character skills and other DMs to play a role but not dwarf things like range, armour, etc.
And to my knowledge, no game except perhaps Attack Vector (hello PhD in Physics or Math!) handles blow through or stern or bow rakes very well.
The other thing that would be nice to see is a sort of 'critical hit' rule - things that cause just the kind of stuff your PCs have to respond to: Power plant overload, sensor overload, fire, ruptured coolant lines, X, Y or Z.... things that require some of the PCs to race out of their workstations and do some 'fire brigade' type activity to lock down the situation.
I don't want to see hits like that so common that good tactics go out the window, but leave there be some small chance. After all, this is how your Beowulf with a Gunner-4 has some chance to slow down a Dragon class SDB despite the Dragon's superior armour - one well placed shot into a fuel scoop that causes a fuel bladder rupture or something like that.