Well unless they can out acclerate you. But still I would rather pick one. Real physics engine. Or a faked atmosphereic engine. One or the other. Picking bits and pices from both is both confusing and leading to exploits/bugs. Want to get accross/through that asteroid field quickly in your Drayman. Eject one pice of cheap cargo. Bump it. F9 and follow it through/around. Same thing with running away from combat, etc... Its a broken system. Good idea but I would rather all objects have friction or no objects have friction. To simulate the space feeling just keep the friction small as normal when manuvering, but all objects should have a MAX veloicty, like in an atmosphere. This would not need to be explaned other than, thats the way WC did it and thats the way we are doing it, and its more fun this way.
Honestly I don't think anyone really wants a true to life physics engine. The only way I can even imagine combat working in real life is with almost complete computer controll. You command the computer and the computer exicutes the manuvers. Manual manuvering just becomes far too complex far too quickly for a human to handle it, in real time.