First off I'll admit to being a tad biased. I own 4 Cutters. 1 for mining, 1 for space trucking, 1 for combat, and 1 that I haven't figured out what to do with yet. As for combat, yes the Cutter has poor maneuverability. Of the large ships, the Corvette has the best maneuverability, Cutter is much faster in a straight line, Anaconda is faster than the Vette, slower than the Cutter, and has worse maneuverability than the Cutter. Large ships are just not as maneuverable as the medium/small ships, so it's going to be more difficult to maintain time on target. I personally stick to all gimbled weapons on large ships. No they won't be able to maneuver like the medium and small ships but they can definitely make up for it in other ways. That being said, the Cutter is definitely capable of burning down a lot of other large ships. I can run mine solo in a high CZ and never lose shields, all while racking up kill after kill. But mine is also completely engineered to the max. Without significant upgrades, the Cutter will come off as a disappointment, but from my experience, that rings true for all the large ships.