why do I never see them? I would think they would work well together giving eachother a focus and a target lock or giving them to a third ship with torpedoes or something.

Talked about this on the most recent Mynock Squadron Nerdcast. It was a thing back in the day. Push the Limit and other options for action economy kinda pushed it out the window. Synergy between two different ships seldom work as well on the table as they do in theory.

Because old school has died out grampy!

No seriously, the X does not cut it in competitive play at least, and Dutch is not that loved because he has no EPT slot and should have one. I always felt robbed of something when i tried to play him.

Otherwise, mid PS pilots are not flown anyway. They get arc-dodged and eaten by Aces, and they get out-valued by generics because they are too expensive for their pilot abilities to make up for the price!