There is no problem with the illum being as strong as it is now, there is a problem with it being as spammable as it is now, but take away the illum and the advent have nothing but caps for most of the game.
Sigh.....the problem is there is no counter to Illum / Flak / Repulse. All I'm trying to say is people should discuss this and not cry "spam spam spam". You don't have to nerf the Illum, there just have to be viable counters, like Subverters were a viable counter back in 1.05. Just like strikecraft were a viable counter in 1.10. Guess what, people could have used different fleet composition and used tactics (like spreading out a bit) that were more resistant to Subverters, but instead everyone cried because their spam tactic wasn't working so Subs got nerfed. Strikecraft were a wee bit OP, but it was fairly even across the races, LRF's suddenly had an effective counter and couldn't comprise 90% of a fleet....rather than adapt, SOME people cried bloody murder, and now we have semi useless strikecraft again.
Now the problem is not that the Illuminator is too strong....which it is pretty damn strong, the problem is that there is no effective counter to Illum / Flak / Repulse / Progen / Halcyon ...keep adding ships as you grow bigger.... Entr 1.03 Illums have 10% less firepower than Vanilla 1.05 Illums....but they seem stronger because of the current racial balance.
All I'm trying to say, don't cry spam and muddy the issue, focus on the current balance of the Illuminator vs the other races. The Illuminator can remain strong as long as there is some kind of effective counter to an endgame Advent fleet.
As for spam, it is just a catch all that people cry all the time, especially when they are losing. I have built fleets that are using 2 or 3 types of ships, and supported by a couple caps, and people cry "Cykur, you damn spammer". And that is when I'm playing TEC or Vasari!!!! I almost never played Advent until just before I took a break from the game.
It is clear when people cry spam right now what they are usually talking about is Illuminators. But there are some people who get rolled by LRM spam, get HC rushed, or get rushed by Scout spam....guess what? Too bad!! You should have been able to defend yourself, or there was a reason why the other guy had more money than you. Period. There has always been different kinds of spam in Sins...in my opinion 1.10 was the patch that required the most balanced fleets.