I preferred the Black Wasp to the Black Vampire for a lot of things...that machine gun-type firing of the Dust Cannon...the way I just kept blowing the hell out of ships...seriously, I really relished flying both variants of the Wasp. I gives you the opportunity to fly a very, very high-powered ship when you're at an early stage of the game. You get to fly the Wasp, with it's Tachyons and Mass Drivers, while you're usually flying Piranhas and Tigersharks. High power at an early stage of the game...kind of like flying that prototype Rapier in WC, or the prototype Excalibur in WC3.
Nobody gets on your case if you fly the Wasp, though...