Probably not until much later. The main thing Stardoci is trying to evaluate with Beta 1 is hardware compatibility. With Beta 2 the focus will shift to the user interface. Beta 3 is when they start worrying about balancing the gameplay. See http://galciv2.com/Forums.aspx?ForumID=162&AID=64347#535063 for details.

The devs have also said that the way range is handled will be reworked. It seems to be pretty broken at present.

range just drop 1 of the colony pods and put more support modules in for now thats what ship design is for

This is not currently possible. Colony ships start with far more equipment than they are allowed to hold. They are not designed using the same rules that the player is required to abide by, and this IMO is a recipie for trouble.

All ships in the game should follow the rules, there should be no exceptions for Dev-Team designed ships. If you feel the need to make an exception, then this should be a sign that something is wrong with the rules, so a rule-change is in order. Otherwise it becomes a competition between designer vs player, and the game of player vs AI is lost in the process.

The "already designed" ships do break the rules for what you can fit into a ship. However, I'm sure that in the future, that will be addressed.

And you can design a cheaper colony ship that can go further then the template colony ship. Use the freighter hull, give it the range you want, and make it as fast as you want. It should still end up being cheaper then the template colonizer. And better suited for your particular game.