Let's take the recent Falcon "Nerf" as an example of the subtleties of balancing. The Falcon recon ship and the Electronic Counter Measure (ECM) modules that it employs have been a dominant force in EVE PVP for ages, so straight away the falcon issue is two problems in one, and that becomes three when you add in the relative uselessness of the other ECM ships in comparison with the Falcon. Now, what happened to the Falcon in Apocrypha 1.1? Well, they weren't "nerfed" into the ground, and the two that decloaked on me the other day would suggest that they are far from useless, but they are certainly not as powerful as they once were. No other recon ship had the ability to put that many targets out of action simultaneously, especially from that range.
