Well the Exorcist belongs to a class of ship which a lot of people have problems with thematically (no prow/dorsal weaponry, no frontal armour, weak broadsides compared to number of hardpoints) and also logistically (hard to run with the rest of the fleet and also an expensive model for a 230 pt vessel).
I have no real problems with the logistic issues noted above, but when determining if it's balanced it is most often compared to the Dictator (rather than the other way around), given similarities in cost and armament. However, it doesn't usually compete with a Dictator, but more likely a Vengeance, given that's the alternative for the model (unless you use magnets or blue-tac or something). If the Dictator is unbalanced then I'd say that the Exorcist is too. However, given the raft of other issues involved with it I didn't want to bring it up in my previous post so as to avoid going into this much detail. I probably should have given it an off-hand remark as I did with the Defiant, but it is not so easy to dismiss as a ship, though I do feel it's equally irrelevant to this discussion.
As for the shortened reach through manoeuvring, this was a deliberate consideration. So straight line maximum reach would be 120cm from the launching ship, for which it would take 3 turns to achieve.