What they really need is their own damage type.  They do almost as much damage to LF as they do to LRM frigates- and considering their mobility, so long as they have the firepower to counter the latter(which they are supposed to), they likely will still have the upper hand on the former.

Not to mention their damage type is just too versatile in general(there's a reason previously composite damage wasn't available until late game heavy cruisers).  Simply reducing the damage will mean more corvettes are necessary to get the job done, but they will still hit a critical mass where a swarm decimates just about anything as long as they have such a flexible damage type.

Not that reducign the damage would be horrible- it could be a bandaid fix.  But what's really needed is a new damage type that is similar to composite, but less effective against medium, module, heavy, and very heavy armor(well the main important ones to nerf corvettes damage against are medium & module armor, but the other could use a small hit as well).

That said, if a new damage type continues to not be an option, it would also probably help a good deal to improve flak speed/maneuverability a bit.  Flak can wreck corvettes in the right position, but getting into and staying in that position against microed corvettes isn't really an option- and heavily damaged corvettes can easily be ordered to run away and get out of range before the flak can confirm the kill.

I agree with Jule, fighters should kick some corvette butt!  In this way players start to spam carriers, and then the light frigates get their moment of importance.  With more light frigates being built the incentive to build LRF increases.  This still is a very hostile LRF game balance though, and flak is overly strong as to provide a counter to both fighters, LRF and corvettes.  We need a specific ANTI FLAK frigate for each race.

light frigates don't really counter flak as hard as they should(this is an experience based reason, you can check seleucia's thread that attempts to show this ). 

Flak have a lot of health and armor, and the light frigate damage is also low so that the flak frigates last longer against their counter.  Considering a buff to the ability of light frigates to kill flak is one way developers attempted to remedy this problem in the beta by reducing flak hitpoints across the board. 

The thing is Light frigates are also very easily killed by corvettes.  If you increase light frigate hit points and increase LRF damage % vs light frigates then you keep the same strength of the LRF counter while making the corvettes less effective at quickly killing off your light frigates(because the light frigates would have more hitpoints). 

This is one potential balance solution that could really allow frigates to get more playtime.  If you don't  face a Light frigates fleet, then there is little to no reason to build a lot of LRF, as corvettes, flak and fighters all kick your LRF's butts.

Hmm well if increasing Light frigate vs. corvette damage would help to offset the corvettes extreme maneuverability so that what shots the light frigates do get in while they maneuver around would count so much more.