Downside of weapon range + chance to hit addition is that it basically requires throwing out the combat "engine" as it is. on the plus side, not much is required for AI to handle things.
From games with more complicated combat system such as paradox games, it does become apparent it is very very tricky to tweak things right, thought. Especially to get AI to favour reasonable mix of ships (cap ship, carrier, fighter screen, picket ships) ..
So IMO, if more varied combat engine is added in add-on and/or GC3, it would be good to keep things simple as possible.
However, since code already exists to balance the paper scissors rock of energy, kinetic and missile, it should be possible to adjust that to deal with fighter+carrier, capship, frigate. Each is excellent against some enemies and weak against others. (capship nukes frigates + carriers, frigates murder fighters + other frigates, fighters tear through capship + carrier plus can provide CAP to prevent previous.) .
Again, in my opinion, this would give the combat a lot more spice without making it micromanagement nightmare and/or herculean AI programming task.