Strikecraft are killed so easily by flak that the boost to Carrier Cruisers will hopefully make them a little more effective. Flak is such a hard counter that carriers are often pretty marginalized. You might have had some good success with them in your games, but most people get pretty annoyed when their twenty carriers are neutralized by 4-5 flaks.
I almost always play Vasari, they are my favorite race. I am not that concerned with the changes to RA. Vasari DO need something like RA to help them keep up with the endgame economies of the other races, but I can fully agree that the current "free ships for life" style RA is imbalanced. By having a cost associated with RA, the developers are able to control just how much help the Vasari economy gets. I think the new RA is still going to be handy to have.
What I'm worried about is the nerf to Subverters! Yes, they are very powerful, but they are also pretty desperately needed to counter the superior numbers of TEC or Advent ships they will be fighting. I was expecting them to get nerfed a bit, but to have the anti-matter cost for Distortion field double while cutting the duration by 1/3 seems like a lot. Ironically, the best defense to Subverters is just to spread your fleet out in several groups. Most Advent and TEC players want the opposite (especially Advent), to have every ship they own practically stacked on each other so all the ship synergies make the fleets invulnerable. Subverters are an "anti cluster" type of ship.
I also am not sure how to fight the Iconus Guardian's Repulsion ability without Subverters, but Repulsion is going to become a "channeled" effect, so maybe it won't be as overpowered as it is currently. Even the Subverters get pushed around by Repulsion until they manage to get lucky enough to lock them down with Distortion Field. My biggest frustration with Repulsion is that it pretty much makes it impossible to protect my capitals. Skilled players use the Guardians to bounce your capitals around, separating them from your fleet and preventing them from lining up to jump out of system. Again, maybe the new "channeled" mechanic will fix this.
If Subverters and Repulsion both get toned down a bit, it should be a lot more attractive to play TEC in long games. If just Subverters get nerfed, it might be time to start playing Advent. If you can't beat em, join em.

Also, you mentioned you wanted an anti-strikecraft static defense -- you can just put fighters in your hangars. That will do the trick.