Had a bit of a half baked idea the other night.
What if you could program sequences of manuevers? A piloting 'macro' if you will. I would assign them to the number keys, myself, but there are certainly options for that.
Anyway, the basic idea is that you can tell the ship to execute turns of a specific number of facings, along with bursts of thrust of a specific length. Ideally the game would have a simulation of what the precise results would be as you're programming the macro, but that might not be feasible.
End result: Tap a number key, and your ship goes into a series of wild precision manuevers. Break out of the sequence at any time by tapping an arrow key or the braking key. You can fire while you're in the middle of the manuever without interrupting it.
I haven't really thought about any of the details; just the meat of what I'd like to see. Whether you'd need a ROM or a device of some sort, etc. I don't know.
Manuevers by the numbers
I really like this. I'd vote for it requiring some sort of fairly-common ROM. Maybe one that replaces that Autopilot ROM? This could really make for some more interesting fights. The combat system would gain a whole new level of depth.