Currently the novice matches have preset loadouts for the exact same reason I suggest having the ships being unlocked. Players often rank out of the novice matches fairly rapidly as well.
For some reason they have an attraction to these ships (mobulas, galleons, spires, etc) that require a bit more experience to use effectively. This leads to a poor match and sometimes some rage quitting.
Even now, when less experienced pilots try to use these ships, the more experienced players attempt to talk them out of it and suggest using the easier ships.
This helps ease the learning curve, instead of having them struggle with a difficult ship and wondering why it doesn't work and they're doing so badly, even against players with their same experience.
So the concept that newer captains shouldn't be using these ships until they have more experience is already in existence in the community.
What'd I'd suggest is needing 50-100 matches as a pilot before you can use some or all of the more difficult ships (spire, galleon, squid, mobula). Which isn't all that many matches, but should be enough to give them a good feel for piloting and ease the transition into the harder ships.