I don't know if anyone has suggested this, but I think this makes sense.
The problem with firebeetles as an eco drop attack unit (which i think is their primary intended role) is that T1 arty is just better.
One way to fix them might be to give them "eco attack" modes. You click one mode and they're set to target mexes, you click another and they're set to target power. When dropped, if they're near mexes or power they attack those structures automatically - no player input required - targeting the highest tier structures first.
With T1 arty you can just drop. You don't even have to watch the drop happen, its fire and forget, your T1 arty will start attacking things the moment they land. You can look back at the drop zone a few seconds after the drop happens and see how you're dong, but its not really mandatory. This doesn't happen with firebeetles. You have to micro them and they're expensive and they're often dropped into places where they will be attacked.. You have to split the say 8 beetles you dropped into groups of 3, and separately send them at mexes, or you have to clumsily just send all of them to each mex in sequence. This gives the enemy more time to respond.
You can get around this by queuing up attack orders before you load them into the transport, but I've tried this, and what happens is that the beetles get stuck on one another and you wind up with a traffic jam for several seconds. You're better off just microing it after the drop.
Anyway, I'm seeing lots of good interesting suggestions, but I feel like if you can make drops with firebeetles less clumsey to use, that might just be enough to make them worth using - and I really like the idea of firebeetles having synergy with transports and decievers. If they were useful as drop units - at least on par with say Zthuee drops I'd be using them all the time.