I am certainly unaware of any staff member getting special upgrades to their Vessel from Action Replay, who I must stress - DOES NOT PLAY, and thus has zero investment in any faction, and certainly no reason to hand out favours to developers. I've worked with him for many years and never seen any sign of that behaviour.
Of course our staff is large (aound 50) so updates will sometimes hit stuff that is developer controlled.
I would urge anyone concerned that things like this are happening, and that we have devs seeking to enrich their own character's properties through their connection to staff please do report it to me or the Active Admins. It will be dealt with.
As an aside, I often have no idea which ships are being referenced in these threads as most have been renamed since I made them. I've also only got a passing knowledge of ship to ship interaction mechanics as the system is now very different to the one I originally devised.