[Suicide Junkie]

In my experience, one-sided battles rarely result in great numbers of damaged ships.

That is my point exactly.
If battles were made to GENERATE lots of damaged ships, then there would be less problem.

This can be done with leaky shields and armor, where finishing off a burning, crippled hulk takes a significant amount of firepower. If that firepower could be better used disabling another ship or two, the player who concentrates fire will be at a disadvantage.

Think of a situation where one player concentrates his fire on the enemy. He vaporizes one ship in the time it takes his opponent to reduce three of his ships to half capacity.
If decent strategies are in place, those cripples can be left behind, and out of range, while a new set of ships are crippled.
Player 1 has lost no ships, but has 6 ships out of comission. Player 2 has lost only 2 ships!

Now, when both players are dishing out damage in the cripple strategy, both fleets will be crippled first, and then the survivors will weakly duke it out, or be crushed by the remaining undamaged ships from the victorious side.
Either way, both players take a lot of damage.