If you encounter ANY offensive drone, there's next to zero chance for your glaive to charge before their drone hit you a few times. Even at lvl 3 cloak, 15 second cloak, with 25 second charge, with a lvl 1 crew manning it, still gives about 8 second for the drone to hit you 2 ~ 3 times.
Actually if you time it right, the drone hits you once, sometimes twice before the glaive fires (depends on where the drone is in its pass pattern when you come out of cloak.) Once you get the hang of it and lvl 3 cloak, early drones are only a problem for the DA-12 if you come against a Zoltran with one. Zoltrans without drones aren't a problem either since you can hit the weapons room on the first shot with the glaive. The "luck" with the DA-12 is pretty much is "don't run into a Zoltran with drones".
The only buff I'd like to see to the DA-12 is a change in how crew experience is gained. You get weapon exp per shot fired and you don't get exp for dodging during cloak. These together mean it takes ages for a DA-12 crew to gain levels.