Here's an off the wall thought that might speed up blay and possibly improve the game. Why not increase weapon size/power so that you have fewer weapons but stronger in power. That way the only thing that would have to be rebalanced would be armour (again! lol).
Just thinking about that as I got into a fight with 200 Tholian Dreadnoughts vs 250 Klingon Frigate/Destroyer class ships and hit tactical, my mistake! Takes a looong time to watch all those weapons in fast mode, probably would take 24hours in normal mode
Also watching those weapon platforms fire away in fast mode (on planets) takes a loong time too
I'm not sure if this has been done in any mod but it might be interesting to experiment with?