No kidding, this is very impressive!

I'm still dropping new components into the inventory window and then minimizing the size of each, every time, since it will have auto-placed somewhere random like an engine sticking perpendicular from the cockpit. The hide part button doesn't seem to work. Am I missing something? 

Could we mount components without needing to place them somewhere on the ship? I don't normally care what my ships look like, but I've had times where the weapons are pointed backward, or engines on the front, and thats a little annoying.

Really all I want is to control what the ship does without the baggage of how it looks. I'd be fine with the AI doing the cosmetics so long as it doesn't make the ship look stupid.