You can actually see ships on the whole mini-map with the "Eyes of the Universe". Sometime the ships disappear on the mini-map but when you use your mousewheel on the mini-map display to zoom-in and out the ships appears. So there is no problem with that. And what is wrong with the ship design? It works fine for me, I mean creating your own ships. Yeah I know it can be a bit buggy with saving templates but there is no serious bugs in it.

Mandrall

Stardock is actually growing.  

If I recall correctly, the current status is that it probably will be made, but it's certainly not be worked on and there are no plans to do so in the near future.