Tough Little Ship

Hello there! I'm kind of a boomerang player in that I come back after long hiatuses away, mostly just to fly around ESD and put some old lockboxes on the Exchange, so I've kinda missed a lot of finer details on endgame (beyond space barbie) systems, like rep and upgrades. I started poking at searches the last couple of days, but I get a spectrum of information from the last four years, so I thought I'd jot down some questions here and hope y'all had some time to spare and help me. Please? :)

I'm flying a T6 Tactical Escort, because I love the Defiant, and I like sticking to phaser weapons and quantum torpedoes...but I like leaning towards survivability and mobility. My captain is ENG.

Should I be leaning on more shield emphasis, or hull cap/repair?

I like the flavor of pulsed fire from cannons, and back in the dark ages I slotted up with turrets in all three aft slots for constant fire...should that get swapped out for an array? I know the Kelvin Timeline connie has phaser arrays that are visually pulsed fire, is that the only one?

I see that some gear slots have visuals that alter the cosmetics of the ship. Is there a source site that describes these, so I can figure out what to work toward to give my ship a more stealthy look?

When I get random green gear drops while I'm out playing around, should I be selling those on the exchange or salvaging for materials? I haven't ever gotten into crafting, but I heard you need to craft nicer Mk XV stuff? It'd be nice to get my gear upgraded to a more comfortable point. I hit 65 and things started hitting hard again and my Mk XII stuff didn't feel quite as potent, obviously.

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I've got more questions, but I've already imposed on your eyeballs enough. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read, and doubly if you offer up some constructive insight.