Ok so why aren't there many user created ships being shared or available for download ? I'm thinking it's probably because there isn't an easy way to do this or it isn't well published how to do this.

I don't know if this is feasible or possible but one idea that struck me as kind of obvious and that would galvanize a crazy ship building community that is already out there (just check out that ship threadLink ) is if there was an in game Custom Ship Manager.
This Custom Ship Manager should make it easy for us to load up custom designed ships and manage which ones we want to appear in a particular game (instead of having all the user ships available at one time which can be overwhelming in a game). It would give a point and click interface to a procedure that right now is a bit round about to install ships, which is extracting the files to particular folders etc. The Custom Ship Manager wouldn't have to be in the game but can be accessed through the main menu.

Another useful feature might be some type of checking utility that would tell the player what files they are missing if they're trying to install a custom ship.
Ability to access the Shipyard or a Shipyard like Utility with full library of hulls, jewels, etc outside of the game IE not having to create a map and game to do this.
Error-checking mechanism so that we can check to see if our designs will show up in the game and at what stage (required hulls/weapons).

Deleting unwanted Mods and custom ship downloads.

Perhaps another feature would be it could connect to the web and right into the downloads section of the website's Library and players could upload and download easily. Right now all I see is 3 downloads in the "Ship" section of the library which is funny because I know for sure there are so many ships out there that really creative and artistic users have created that a bunch of people would love to download and use in the game but don't know how or can't get access to it (b/c the creators don't know how to upload their creations).

I think the long-term benefits of making it easier for the ship building community would be tremondous not only in adding more value and enjoyment but also increasing customer loyalty. I hate bringing up other game's as an example but I must say the Skin and objects community of the Sims is really strong and I think that's because they provided the community with really easy to use utilities that made integrating user created works into the game very easy to do.

-my 2 cents,
ehnProdigy

p.s. I apologize in advance if some or all of these features are already in the game and I just happen to not know about it.