As a once-best-player-of-the-game about 2 years ago, I can say confidently that mods should never be taken into account when it comes to ship effectiveness, if they are, then it should be restricted to the mods and the mod sets that were used to make the ships. After all, mods are completely unbalanced, and an experienced competitive player can break them in less than 10 minutes (trust me done it myself).
Tax:
This is, to the young ones, the first true Avoider, which spawned the Ultralight and the Bomber meta further on. Probably my magnum opus in terms of affecting the meta, since it changed the meta for at least half a year.