IMO, the problem is still "Kitsune comes too early". Skyraider is a good fast strike craft, with reasonable tradeoffs compared to the Skyranger - but the Skymarshall is already starting to blur that line, and then the Kitsune comes and eats Skyraider's lunch soon after. In my experience. there's a very limited time window where Skyraiders actually fulfill their apparent niche, that being being a Dragonfly successor.
To be fair, the Kitsune is a one-off, while the SKY-series have no such limitations. In the (unlikely) event that the player either fails to get the Kitsune or loses it, the Skyraider becomes more of a fall-back than a niche craft, at least until the Skymarshall becomes available.
Using the Kitsune and the Starfighter feel a bit like cheating to be honest, and I find myself avoiding either craft and more or less jsut use them as display pieces.
For what the Kitsune is, the player really doesn't have to go through all that much trouble to earn it. It's also kind of strange that X-COM get's nothing tech-wise of what might as well be the first actual alien craft they recover. Sure it's not
as advanced as the "usual" aliens, but nonethless it's a space-capable combat-landing craft that's more sturdy than anything X-COM can put together at that point. Even if they can't figure out how the engines work there should be some advanced tech in there that is beneficial.
P.S. The 'Alien Power Systems' requirement is not recent. It goes back to at least 1.3, which is the oldest version I had easy access to. Probably much earlier than that.
Still have 0.9.8 here and the requirements are identical. I don't remember, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were the same in 0.5.